


Let You In

by SloopOfWar



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Dubious Lore, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Found Family, Happy Ending, M/M, Not MOM-compliant, On Hiatus, Post-Canon, Recreational Drug Use, Sharing a Body, references to trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:01:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 48,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25649233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SloopOfWar/pseuds/SloopOfWar
Summary: Terra counted himself lucky to get his body and his best friends back after the war.Hedidn’tcount himself particularly lucky to have two ghosts following him around, each wearing his face and who had more than enough essence of Xehanort around them. Maybe if he ignored them, they would just go away.Or maybe he was already out of luck. Again.
Relationships: Ansem Seeker of Darkness | Xehanort's Heartless/Xemnas, Aqua/Terra (Kingdom Hearts), Past Saïx/Xemnas (Kingdom Hearts), Terra & Xemnas (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 46
Kudos: 118





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this story was born out of that scene at the end of KH2, where Roxas and Naminé become visible projections from Sora and Kairi's bodies. All the other living in another's heart lore I've entirely passed over, heart stations and waking and sleeping and all that stuff. So, if you're a sucker for complicated KH lore... I envy you for being able to wrap your head around it, cause I certainly can't.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy. Kudos and comments are always appreciated!

He often had nightmares where Xehanort returned. Little horror movies playing inside his head, of apocalyptic skies and women screaming, wood, brick and stone falling before hoards of frenzied Heartless and spectral, silent Nobodies. In these nightmares, Terra would be forced to stand there amidst the slaughter – trapped under his bones and unable to move. Like he was on the other side of a screen, flattening the pause button on the remote to no avail.

But worse were the dreams where he was an active participant; the heavy weight of his keyblade gripped in hand, bringing it down with all his might against flesh and blood and bone. Laughing in a raspy voice that wasn’t his own, even as he screamed himself hoarse within the confines of his skull. Banging his hands against the screen while the horror of own his life unfolded outside of his control.

He woke up in a cold sweat a couple of times a week, running to the bathroom to splash water on his face and stare at his reflection. Making sure his blue eyes stayed blue. Making sure the few silvers popping up at his temples were still the tiny minority amongst a full head of chestnut brown.

“Xehanort's gone,” he murmured. “He's gone. You're in control now, Terra.”

He still referred to himself in the second-person sometimes, a little habit born from a decade of pleading with his body to cooperate. At one point it seemed all he could do was yell at it out of frustration, over and over again. _You're mine. You're mine, you're mine, you're MINE_. But as the years passed, he couldn't summon the energy any more. By the end, before the sight of Aqua and Ventus reinvigorated his spirit to resist, all he could ever manage was an occasional whisper; weak, uncertain and lost to the silence of the void.

"Gone," he reaffirmed loudly to his reflection. "Gone forever." He wiggled his toes, bare and numb against the cold tiles, and revelled in the sensation of pins and needles.

But no matter what he told himself, it just wasn't in Xehanort's nature to disappear.

The man was a virus, lying dormant in the blood until the day he would re-emerge without warning. And when that day finally came, it wasn't with storm clouds and razed buildings and all the trappings of his nightmares. It wasn't with violence, or declarations of the end of times, or _anything_ , really. In fact, it was so subdued, the worst thing Xehanort could be accused of was a rather indelicate breach of Terra’s privacy.

He strolled into the bathroom while Terra was doing his hair after his evening shower and sat neatly on the edge of the bath. Terra caught sight of him in the reflection of the mirror. He half-screamed, half-choked, whipping around so fast his feet nearly skittered out beneath him on the wet floor.

“Careful,” said Xehanort calmly. “After everything you’ve endured, it would be a shame for you to die by dint of cracking your head open on the bathroom sink.”

Terra summoned his keyblade in a flurry of panic, forgetting he was naked, forgetting they were in the cramped bathroom of the cramped house he shared with Aqua and Ventus. Distantly, he noted that this wasn't _Xehanort_ Xehanort. This was one of the subordinate Xehanorts – the ones they told him about. The men who were walking around wearing Terra’s face. Somehow, that made it even worse. He was looking at himself ten years down the line, if he had never broken free of Xehanort’s hold on him.

“There’s no need for that,” said Xehanort, as if his sudden appearance was no cause for alarm. “I am only here to talk.”

Terra swung the keyblade at him with all his strength. It passed straight through his body like it was air and made quick work obliterating a shelving unit behind him, splintering it into a cloud of wood with an almighty crash. Bottles of shampoo burst open on the floor and boxes of cotton buds and tampons scattered everywhere.

Xehanort sighed.

“Most undignified behaviour,” he said, getting to his feet. “I will return when you have calmed down.” The door banged open just as he reached it and Aqua and Ventus burst in, no doubt drawn to the sound of him destroying half their bathroom supplies. Xehanort passed straight through Aqua, through the doorway, and then through the hallway wall.

Aqua squeaked.

It took Terra a few moments to realise she wasn't reacting to a ghost walking through her, but to the sight of Terra's very naked -

He dropped his keyblade with a clatter and covered himself with both hands. A hot flush burned on his face, spreading over his whole body. "Oh," was all he could say. That or start screaming at the top of his lungs, and that would not be a good look.

Hadn't they seen him? The ghost? Was he going mad? What the _fuck_ was going on?

"Ah, could you guys step outside for a moment? Yes, thank you-" He closed the door in their faces. Gently, as if that made his behaviour any less suspicious.

They were waiting in the hallway when he came out with a towel knotted and double-knotted around his waist. "Terra..." Ventus began.

"Sorry about that," said Terra breezily, deciding denial was the most preferable course of action. "I thought I saw something. It was just a trick of the light, you know, with the steam and everything." He forced himself to laugh. "Guess I'm still a little on edge. I'll replace everything I smashed in there. Sorry."

They stared at him. "Are you sure?" Aqua asked. "You looked really scared."

"Yeah, I know." He kept the smile pinned to his face. "I thought the shadows moved or something. Just... brought back some bad memories. I'll have to try to ventilate the room more when I'm showering."

When they didn't say anything, he made himself laugh again. His eyes darted nervously to the place where the ghost had vanished through the wall, half-expecting to see his head sticking out through their ugly floral wallpaper.

"Right," he said, just as Aqua starting talking again, cutting her off awkwardly. "I'm going to go get changed here. Don't be going into that bathroom, there's bits of wood and probably nails all over the place. Oh, and some shampoo spilled – you might slip." He backed away down the hallway to his bedroom. "I'll clean it up in a minute – when I'm dressed. Sorry if you saw my – uh, me, I mean."

Xehanort didn't show up again for a few more days after that. By then, Terra had optimistically filed the prior encounter under something he must have imagined in his head. He should have known he'd never be so lucky.

He was doing some stretches in the garden before his evening run. When he bent over to touch his toes, a pair of translucent black boots appeared in the periphery of his vision.

"Is now a better time?" asked the ghost. Terra straightened himself slowly, his eyes running up the full length of the ghost's body up to his face. Oh God, his _face_. It really was Terra's face. Terra's face with silver hair and gold eyes.

It took all his self control not to throw up right there and then.

"Just go away," Terra breathed, barely moving his mouth. A soft humming drifted out the open kitchen window, the smell of soup simmering on the hob. He glanced over quickly to make sure Aqua wasn’t looking out at him. "I don't want to talk to you. I don't want anything to do with you. You're not welcome here, understand?"

"I'm afraid I have nowhere else to go," Xehanort said. "It would appear my heart has been reabsorbed into yours. You are all that binds me to my continued existence." When he bowed his head, he looked almost gracious, but Terra was unmoved. These were the tricks of Xehanort's trade – smooth words, the barest suggestion that he would just helping out someone in need. "I believe we can come to some sort of arrangement."

It was downright insulting he thought Terra was going to fall for this bullshit again. Not when the cost of his failure had been so high. Not when he'd been given this second chance at life and to make things right – with Ventus and Aqua, if not with Master Eraqus.

Never again. Never again, never again, never again.

With as much venom as he could possibly muster, Terra spat on the ground at Xehanort's feet.

"Stay away from me," he hissed. "You _parasite_."

_________________________________________

At first, they would visit Master Eraqus’s grave every day. Pack a picnic, bring a blanket, and spend hours just milling around on the cliff side. Aqua made fresh wreaths of wildflowers, Ventus lit a candle and practised his magic – diverting the high mountain winds away until the candle burnt down to a stub. Terra sat there and watched them both, curling and uncurling his fingers in the grass. The silence that settled between them wasn’t quite comfortable, but none of them were equipped with the know-how to break the ice.

How long had they spent alone? Cast off from each other and isolated, from even the most perfunctory of human contact? They were practically three strangers sitting down together, mourning for a dead man from the long-distant past.

By rights, every day should be like that day they all spent on the beach. Sunny skies and easy laughter. His arm around Aqua’s shoulders and Ventus’s weight leaning up against his side. But it was one thing to get drunk at a crowded beach party and revel in the thrill of victory, and it was another thing entirely to adapt to the monotony of the everyday. He knew establishing a new normal would take time, just as he knew it was probably a mistake for them all to move in together as soon as they did. Their house felt like a minefield, every step and every word negotiated around a litany of sore subjects.

After a while, it did get easier. Terra managed to convince himself to sit at Aqua’s side and ask her about the wildflowers. He sniggered at all their different names – bladderwort and common dodder, devil’s bit scabious and bitter vetch. Aqua rolled her eyes at his immaturity but she was smiling. Her smile widened when Terra tucked one of the flowers behind her ear, a pretty thing with petals almost the same shade as her hair.

“This one suits you,” he said. “What’s it called again?”

“Devil’s bit scabious.”

“That’s your new nickname, Aqua,” called Ventus. He was sending their picnic blanket flying around in circles above their heads like a magic carpet. Occasionally he tried to climb on it like his skateboard and would promptly fall off, scuffing the whites of his trousers black.

“But it sounds evil!”

“Hey, at least you’re not a bitter vetch,” said Terra. He dodged an elbow aimed at his stomach.

“Fine," Aqua told him. “You can be the common dodder, then.”

“Which one am I?” asked Ventus.

Aqua held up a small, fuzzy white flower. “This one.”

“...and what is it?”

“Bogbean.”

Terra had laughed so hard his stomach cramped. Ventus sulked a few paces behind the whole way back to the house, groaning every time one of them caught the other's eye and went into hysterics all over again. Terra hadn't felt so giddy in his whole life, and Aqua was still giggling as she went upstairs to take her bath. Ventus rounded on him the second he heard the water starting to run.

"Sorry," said Terra, holding up his hands. "We were just being silly, didn't mean anything by it-"

"When are you going to ask her out?"

"I-" Terra's mouth fell open. The question was so surprisingly blunt, when the three of them had been specifically treading on eggshells around one another for months. Perhaps it was the sudden change of pace that had him answering earnestly, when he might have feigned ignorance otherwise. "I can't."

Ventus folded his arms across his chest. "Why not?"

It wasn't a question of not wanting to. Terra had wanted her for years. Now that they were living in close quarters, seeing each other every day, he found himself wanting her even more. But even if she was to fling herself at him, he didn't think he could follow through with it. He didn't deserve her. There was no escaping the fact his body was used goods, sullied and contaminated. He couldn't bear the thought of touching her with his filthy hands, not when he couldn't even bear to touch himself.

When the luxury of his own pleasure had been denied to him for so long, it was too daunting to have it back. No matter how many times he woke up hard or felt the stirring of arousal low in his belly, he just couldn't bring himself to satisfy his urges. All he could think of is how many times Xehanort must have run his hands all over this body, all over _Terra's_ body. How many times Xehanort likely made himself feel good with this body. For all he knew, Xehanort could have been letting anyone have a turn at it.

He felt like some kind of public urinal, used and dirty. He wanted to take a thick, bristled brush and scrub himself inside and out with bleach.

He wished Ventus hadn't brought it up. Throwing it out there and making it a thing, a new sort of tension between them. Aqua wasn't an idiot – she began to catch the looks Ventus would shoot Terra when he thought she wasn't looking, the way their conversations would drop out awkwardly when she came into the room. She didn't meet his eye sometimes, and when they met alone in the hallways it was weird, like they were overcompensating the distance between them to avoid touching.

Their visits to the graveside dwindled down to once every few days, then once a week. Then a month had passed and Terra decided to make the journey alone. In all honesty, he'd been chased out of the house by the fear of seeing that black coat again, the flash of silver hair in the corner of his vision. Master Eraqus's grave was a sacred place, one where he knew he was safe. He sat at the edge of the cliff and dangled his feet over ravine.

Aqua's last wreath was shrivelled and dry, battered by the elements and hanging by the barest of threads off the slanted handle of Master's Defender.

Their three Wayfinders held fast.

That evening he put on a movie and got Aqua and Ventus to watch it with him. He slung his arm over the back of the sofa. Aqua's hair tickled his forearm and he found himself imagining them all on the beach again, laughing and drinking in the sun. Halfway through the movie, he was surprised to see he'd dropped his arm down over her shoulders without realising it, fingers brushing along her bare upper arms.

"Oh, sorry." He made to retract his arm but she shook her head.

"Don't worry, I'm comfy." Her voice was thick with sleep. She yawned. "So's Ven, apparently."

Ventus had dozed off on Terra's other side, curled up like a cat. He looked so young still. It was hard to believe he was nearly twenty-seven.

"Who's Ven?" he asked, pretending to look behind the sofa. "I can only see Bogbean."

She grinned. Terra lowered his arm back over her shoulders. Her warmth pressed against him was reassuring; he let himself lean into it. They watched the rest of the movie in comfortable silence, and for a time he was able to forget his troubles.

_________________________________________

He woke and knew instantly something was off. His head was pounding, it was freezing cold, and he could hear trees rustling and birds chirping noisily above his head. He lay there for a few moments, unable to summon the strength to prise his eyes open. There was no way he was in his bedroom. His mattress appeared to be made of stones and he had no blanket, just a little warmth against the back of his calves which he suspected was the rays of the early morning sun.

So he was outside. But he wasn’t wearing shoes or a coat.

He finally crept an eye open and realised where he was. The train tracks. He’d fallen down just at the wayside, half hidden amongst the treeline, about a fifteen or twenty minute walk away from the city. This is what he imagined it would be like to wake up with the world’s worst hangover and no memory of the night before. Except he hadn’t been anywhere near booze since their little beach party months ago, and as far as he could tell, there was only one other way he could’ve ended up out here without remembering how.

 _Someone_ must have managed to take his body for a little walk, without his permission.

“Asshole,” he hissed to himself as he pushed up onto his hands and knees. His whole body hurt. Gods, it was cold. “That _asshole_.”

He was so angry he could barely feel the stones cutting up the soles of his mangled feet as he hobbled back along the tracks to the city. Luckily, it was early enough that he didn’t come across too many people out and about, but the few that did see him stopped and stared. Someone asked if he was alright. A couple of dogs barked at him. Terra ignored them all. The one person he needed to have a word with was conspicuously absent, and continued to be for most of the morning.

Terra made it home, had a bath, took a large dose of potion and got into bed with his poor feet propped up on a stack of pillows before the guilty party finally appeared.

"Well, well," said Terra, by way of greeting. He threw aside the novel he'd been failing to read for the better part of three hours. It sailed through the ghost's chest and landed with a thud on the floor. "Have fun on your morning stroll?"

Xehanort didn't look even remotely guilty. His eyes slid over Terra calculatingly. "What do you remember?"

"I don't need to tell you anything!" Terra's voice was loud enough to convey his anger, but not loud enough to carry beyond his bedroom door. "You need to explain yourself to me! What the hell were you going to do, huh? Where were you going?"

"I wasn't doing anything," he said. He smoothed a strand of silver hair out of his face. “I wasn’t going anywhere."

Terra really shouldn't have been surprised at this point, but the fact Xehanort would brazenly lie to him like that was unbelievable. This was the most words they'd spoken to each other thus far. After Terra spat at him, Xehanort was apparently so disgusted he didn't show up again for another week, and then it was just to glare at him from the other side of the kitchen table and make Terra slop half his taco down his front before vanishing again.

"Oh right, it wasn't you. Of course not." Terra scoffed. "It must have been the _other_ fragment of Xehanort leeching off my body that did it."

"Indeed," said Xehanort.

A short silence fell.

Stupidly, "You what?"

"My counterpart made an attempt to take your body during the night," said Xehanort. "He is not usually so brash, but in light of our most recent defeat, I do not blame him for feeling impatient. It put many aspects of our lives into perspective which we had previously taken for granted-"

"Wait, wait, wait." Terra forced himself upright. "Wait. You mean there's more than one of you? Here? Right now, in my head?"

"In your heart is more accurate, and you should already know the creation of a Nobody is contingent on the prior creation of a Heartless." Xehanort was saying this in the same monotonous tone someone might discuss mathematics, not the event of a disembodied spirit trying to steal a man's body. "I take it you have not sensed his presence."

"Sensed his...?" Terra didn't understand. "I can't sense _you_ either, I had no idea about you until you just popped up out of nowhere and scared the hell out of me."

Xehanort pursed his mouth. "Yes, and I suspect that is why you were left vulnerable. If you were not so pig-headed, I believe we could have come to reasonable terms and established firm boundaries within this unfortunate situation much sooner. As it happens, you are as boorish as you are gullible." He strode forward. Terra did his very best not to flinch back. "Let us perform an experiment. Reach for me."

Annoyed, Terra stuck out an arm and shoved it through Xehanort's stomach. "Okay, done. What was this supposed to achieve?"

"Not physically," said Xehanort. "With your heart."

That gave him pause for thought. "And what will that do?"

"You should be able to feel my presence, the alignment of our hearts together. You believe by ousting me and holding me a distance that I will vanish behind some wall, never to be seen again. It does not work like that. All you are doing is giving my counterpart and I reign to operate at the sidelines, unobserved. Now, try again."

"Or you're just manipulating me into making it easier for you to take it for yourself-"

"If I wanted your body, I would already have it in my possession. Trust me when I say I have no interest in it."

Well, didn't that make a nice change. Terra gnawed on his lower lip, thinking. So wait, what was he supposed to do? Even with all his experience being thrown in and out of his own body, he still didn't really have the hang of the mechanics of how this all worked. He forced himself to concentrate hard on Xehanort – this fragment of Xehanort, rather, for lack of other ideas. In so far, he'd avoided really looking at him properly, considering he was less like the old man and more like Terra's gold-eyed doppelgänger.

"Oh," said Terra. He couldn't quite understand it, but he could sense _something_. It was like rummaging blindly in a box, feeling for contents that he couldn't see or put a name to. Grasping for the edges of that something, a tension settled between his ribs and Terra inexplicably envisioned a grey haze; like mist rolling in off the sea. "What is that?" he asked, even though he already knew. It was the shade of the ghost's heart, clinging to Terra for a breath of life even after his physical body had long since deteriorated.

Once he was able to attribute that tension to the being in front of him, it was easier to locate the other one. Like the edges of the map were gradually being filled in. Only, this one was...

Terra sucked in a breath, feeling panic explode in his belly like a bomb. If the first was mist, grey and cold but relatively non-threatening, this one was a tsunami of evil. Purple-black sludge, surging forward, obliterating everything in its path-

He was scrambling up and out of bed before he knew it, kicking his feet into his sandals. Xehanort barely had the time to raise an eyebrow before Terra tore straight through him on his way out the door. Down the stairs, out the front gate. Back out into the wide wonderful world for the second time that morning. His sandals flapped about on his feet as he ran, not in any particular direction, just hoping with all his might that if he went fast enough, he might somehow leave that grey haze and its little friend the _encroaching darkness_ behind him. Terra knew that darkness. He spent years engulfed in its poisonous cloud, and he wasn't going to let it have him again.

God, he was tired of this. Hadn't he earned his damn reprieve, after everything he'd been through? Couldn't he get a damn _break?_

He ended up doing a loop around the neighbourhood and finished at the bottom of their garden, leaning against the low wall and panting heavily, rubbing sweat out of his eyes.

"And what exactly did that accomplish?" Xehanort appeared beside him, sounding very unimpressed. "All you have done is lost one of your sandals and made your feet bleed again."

Terra sighed, prising an eye open to glare at him. "What the hell is all that darkness back there?"

"My counterpart."

A pause. "That's a lot of darkness."

"He was born of darkness," said Xehanort. He folded his arms and watched the cars pass on the street. The sun shone through him; washing him out and blurring his edges. "Everyone has it inside them, some more than others. I myself belong to neither light nor dark but the twilight in between. The three of us together form somewhat of a gradient, don't you think?"

 _Nope._ "I'm not anything like you, him – either of you. You're power-hungry maniacs." Terra pointed for inflection, jabbing his finger right into Xehanort's chest. "You think I care about any of that stuff any more? The only thing I want is a normal life, with my friends."

"Then it appears we share a common goal."

Terra blinked, and then laughed coldly. "Oh, yeah right. You, a normal life? You aren't even your own person."

"Do I not have a right to exist, like anyone else?"

"No," said Terra immediately. "You gave that up that right."

"And when did I do that?"

"When you chose to do _evil!"_ Terra shouted. People walking past on the street looked very alarmed. He was going to get a reputation in the neighbourhood if he kept this up, but it was more important to drill this point into Xehanort's fat stupid silver head. "Don't you realise how many people you hurt? All the harm you would have done if you had succeeded? No, you're a disease, and no one is going to argue for the right of a disease to exist."

"Ah, I see," said Xehanort. "So it's a question of having done harm or intending to do harm. I hope this applies to all individuals who have committed a crime in their lives or were even considering it, otherwise I might call you a hypocrite." He tilted his head. "Am I to be assured that my old companions in Organisation XIII are being held to account for their transgressions?"

"Uh..." Terra knew fine rightly the survivors of the old Organisation had all had their slates summarily wiped clean. Many of them had even returned to their research in Radiant Garden, as if that wasn't in remarkably poor taste. "Look, it's not up to me-"

The look Xehanort gave him could have skewered him clean through the skull. "You are a hypocrite."

Something strange happened then. Xehanort shifted in the sunlight and refracted, like a double image. When he spoke, even his voice was different. "This is your reasoned discussion in action, is it, Xemnas? Going spectacularly well so far."

Terra blinked. He blinked again, and again, and then realised he was looking at _two_ rather than one. So, the would-be thief had decided to make an appearance at last. "You stay away from me," Terra said, backing into the wall. God, this one was even _dressed_ like Xehanort. The stupid coat and gloves and everything. "Don't think you can steal my body again, or else I'll..." 

He couldn't think of a good threat. They were ghosts, after all.

“You'll what? Keep running?” suggested the one dressed like Xehanort. “It’s worked so well for you thus far. Go on, another lap around the block and we should be gone by the time you get back.”

“Fuck you,” Terra snarled at him. “This body is mine, okay? _Mine_. I’m not sharing it with you assholes for even a second longer.”

“Excellent,” said the first Xehanort. “I recommend taking a gummi ship to Radiant Garden post-haste. There I can make arrangements with Zexion to transfer each of our consciousnesses into replica bodies and we shall all part ways.”

Terra’s mouth fell open. “No. No, no, no, no, no. Weren't you listening to me? You’re not coming back, either of you. You lost. Now you have to just...” He made a shooing motion, as if they were a pair of pigeons pecking around his feet and not two of the most deadly warriors Xehanort had in his arsenal. “… _move on_. You know, to the afterlife or wherever.”

They gave him identical, unimpressed looks.

“You don’t have two brain cells to rub together, do you, boy?” The one in the Xehanort outfit folded his arms and snorted. "No wonder the old man played you like a cheap kazoo." 

“Hey, you’re the one who’s stupid enough to think anyone would ever agree to that in the first place!” Terra snapped. “We just spend decades fighting Xehanort. I don’t care if you both look like me, you’re _him_! How could anyone ever trust you not to wreak havoc the second you walked out the door?”

“If we were all Xehanort, I doubt we would be stuck here with you.”

“Indeed,” said the other. "As it were, I think it’s past time we properly introduced ourselves. My name is Xemnas.” When his accomplice didn’t speak up, he added, “My companion's name is Ansem.”

Terra didn’t give two shits what they deigned to call themselves, but what they said made his stomach shrivel with a new flush of anxiety. They were stuck with him. What would people do when they discovered Terra was being possessed yet again? By Xehanort _yet again_? The team at Radiant Garden once performed terrible experiments on living people, and through their connections to the old King they were apparently above accountability. Who's to say they wouldn't just... lock him up, tie him down to a slab and do something similar to him? Poke and prod him through a cage for the rest of his life while they tried to figure out why he was so susceptible to the darkness? 

"I'm not going to Radiant Garden," he said finally.

Xemnas tilted his head. "Would you prefer us to remain trapped in your shadow, indefinitely?"

Terra walked right past him as if he wasn't there. Just because he didn't know what the hell to do right now didn't mean the solution wouldn't come to him further down the line. Besides, he wasn't in any immediate peril as far as he could tell. They'd tried to take his body and he'd managed to overcome them. He wasn't sure how, but he'd managed it. Maybe they could only take control for a short length of time – too short to really accomplish anything substantial, like make the journey to Radiant Garden. And he seriously doubted either of them would take him over just to do him physical harm considering, as Xemnas said before, their continued existence was leashed to his.

A parasite needed a habitable host after all, and Terra was more than fucking qualified at this point.

He went inside, slamming the back door and locking it behind him. It wouldn't keep them away, but it did make him feel a little better to think he'd made it known he didn't want them to follow.

_________________________________________

"And how long do you plan to carry on this little charade, may I ask?"

Terra chopped up a pepper, the edge of his knife clacking loudly against the board. On the hob, he had onions frying with some garlic. The smell reminded him of his childhood home, his mother's tasteless flowered apron knotted behind her back and the exhaust fan whirling above her head. He would enjoy the memory far more if he didn't have a man-sized gnat buzzing in his ear, reminding him of his presence every few minutes with yet another declaration of Terra's puerility.

"You are acting like a child," he continued. "Didn't your mentors ever teach you the art of diplomacy? I thought you might've learned by now that ignoring your problems does not make them go away."

Mushrooms, next. Then a carrot. He pulled a container of mince out of the fridge and opened a tin of chopped tomatoes. _Mushrooms, carrot, mince, tomatoes_ , he repeated to himself. He found reading lists in his head helped drown out their voices. _Mushrooms, carrot, mince, tomatoes. Mushrooms, carrot, mince, tomatoes. Mushrooms, carrot, mince-_

"Your onions are burning."

"Shit!" He yanked the pot off the hob and clattered it onto the counter. His lovely onions were blackened at their edges and the garlic frizzled into little brown chips.

"You let the oil get too hot," said Xemnas. He leaned his hip against the kitchen table and watched as Terra tried to scrape the onions off the bottom of the pot. Somehow, he didn't go straight _through_ the table, even though he wasn't solid. Maybe Terra would ask about it someday, but since they spoke in the garden three days ago, he'd resolutely stuck to his plan of acting like the two of them didn't exist.

It was easier said than done. Loud music was the best trick so far, but Aqua and Ventus had complained about the noise and he was starting to get tinnitus from wearing earphones. And despite Terra not responding to anything he said, Xemnas just talked so fucking much. It was unbelievable. In fact, Ansem hadn't shown his face for a day and a half, and Terra suspected it was because he himself was sick to death of the other man's incessant prattling.

"You should have prepared your _mise-en-place_ before you started cooking," he was saying. "I also would recommend contacting your landlord and getting an induction hob installed instead of gas, it makes it far easier to control the heat. You can add a little water to the onions to soften them up before you put in the mince, but I'm afraid your garlic is past salvaging."

Terra hesitated. Act like he didn't hear him and start again? Or just take his advice without acknowledging him? He was about to go for the former and dump the lot, before he heard the front door open. He quickly abandoned the thought in the immediate scramble to make it look like everything was completely normal.

When Ventus wandered into the kitchen, skateboard under his arm and a crumpled carton of juice in hand, Terra was waiting with a hand oh-so-casually resting on his hip and a grin plastered to his face.

"Hey, Ventus!" he greeted, a little too loudly. "How's it going?"

"Oh, uh, hey." Ventus looked a little taken aback by his enthusiasm. "Yeah, not bad. What're you cooking?"

"Just a chilli. I thought we could all have it for dinner." He walked right through Xemnas on the way over to the kitchen cupboards. "There's some tortilla chips in here and stuff."

The reprimand came on the back of a sigh. "Your manners leave a lot to be desired. I have encountered stray dogs on the street with more decorum."

Terra's eye twitched. "I might go to the shop and get some garlic bread too," he said. "And maybe some beers? Hey, do you know where Aqua went today? I haven't seen her at all." How dare he accuse _Terra_ of being rude? Who exactly was following who around all day, talking non-stop when no one wanted to hear it? Terra hauled the bag of rice out of the cupboard and slammed it onto the counter.

"I think she went up to visit Master Eraqus." A pause. "Is everything alright? You seem a little..."

"I burnt the onions," said Terra. "Stupid mistake. While you're over there, could you grab me a fresh one out of the fridge? I need to start over."

While Ventus was hoking through the fridge for a new onion, Ansem glided in through one of the walls like a thing from a nightmare. He settled himself comfortably on the counter and crossed one long leg over the other.

"You’re as stubborn as he is," he remarked to Xemnas. "It’s been weeks – negotiating with him is not working. You will have to use a different approach. Might I suggest something a little more forceful?"

"Give it more time," said Xemnas. "The host is hot-headed and inconsiderate but I do not believe he is entirely incapable of rational thought."

Terra gripped the back of a kitchen chair. He didn't realise Ventus was talking to him until he waved a hand to get his attention.

"Yo." Ventus looked concerned. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"And what could you be possibly basing that off, Xemnas?" Ansem idly inspected his glove. "If this boy's brains were lard, he'd be hard-pressed to grease a small pan."

"Perfect," said Terra, through gritted teeth as Xemnas chuckled. "Just... yeah, great. You got that onion there?"

"That's what I was saying, I can only find a half an onion and it's a little mouldy." Ventus held up the useless offering. "Sorry, man. Want me to run out and get that shop for you?"

"No, don't go any trouble." Terra peered down at his burnt little medley. "I... I think I can revive these ones with a bit of water."

He went over to the sink and splashed a dribble into the pot.

"You will need to use more than that," said Xemnas.

Terra sucked in a slow breath, and then splashed a little more.

"More than that."

Another splash.

"That's too much."

This time it was Ansem's turn to laugh. Terra knocked over the pot and let the sad onion soup clog up the sinkhole. "Fuck it," he snarled, turning back to Ventus. "Let's just order something in. Pizza or something. My treat, okay?"

Ventus stared wide-eyed after him as he stormed out into the garden. “Where are you going?”

Terra didn’t stop until he was over the wall and down the street. He found a public bench and plonked himself down on it. “Look, that’s not on,” he said, sensing they'd both followed. “The two of you can’t sit and have a conversation while I’m talking to my friends, it’s too distracting. Show a bit of respect and keep quiet until we’re done.”

“Show a bit of respect?” Xemnas looked at him like he was something dirty walked in on the bottom of someone’s shoe. “The first time we spoke, you tried to attack me.”

“Yeah, but–”

“The second time, you spat at me.”

“Yeah, but–”

“You spend days at a time pretending I am not even there.” He seemed to glow under the street lamp. The two of them were probably the same height, but standing over Terra the other looked very tall. Terra was oddly reminded of Sunday church as a child, kneeling in the pews and looking up at the painted faces in the arched windows. Even in their beauty they’d always seemed so cold and formidable, casting down their judgement. “If you want respect, you will need to earn it first. As it currently stands, I am not inclined to extend you any courtesy you would then see fit to deny me.”

Even the way he talked made him sound unearthly. Like some ancient, celestial being. Terra sighed. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll not ignore you any more.”

“I should think not.” Xemnas folded his arms across his chest. “You of all people should know how demeaning it is to be persistently treated like you don’t exist.”

That hit him like a slap. He turned away, looking for the other one. "And you!" he said sharply, at the dark shape looming nearby. "Stop plotting, okay? I don't know what we're going to do about this shitshow, but you're not getting out of it by..." He waved his arms around. "... by being all _Xehanort_ about it! So just don't bother trying!"

"So it would seem." The shape slid away, like a shadow disappearing into the shade. 

That seemed far too easy, but Terra wasn't going to chase him down to argue. He glanced at his watch. It was getting late and he had pizzas to order. "Right," he said to himself. "You're gonna want one plain cheese, one with pepperoni, maybe one with just veg. Garlic bread too, and some salad..." He was halfway down the street before he paused, glancing back over his shoulder.

Xemnas was still standing under the street lamp, watching him leave. Terra shifted his weight between his feet. They had to start somewhere, he supposed.

"Uh," he said. "Are you... are you coming?"

Xemnas inclined his head. He fell into silent step behind Terra and they went back to the house together.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the support so far with this story. It's getting a bit bigger than I originally intended; lots of things I want these characters doing. I'm updating the tags with each chapter so keep an eye!

The rain plastered Terra’s hair to his forehead. Soaked his t-shirt to his chest and logged down the wool in his trousers until they were like heavy wet sacks flapping about his legs. When he was walking out the door, it had only been a light drizzle through the sunshine which looked to pass in minutes. When that didn’t end up being the case, he’d been too stubborn to go back for a coat. Mostly because Xemnas had been the one to suggest it first.

“There was a time when wandering around in these conditions would have made a person gravely ill,” he was saying. Untouched by the downpour, his own hood was pulled back, spiky silver strands sitting immaculately across his shoulders. “I rescind what I said before. If you truly care so little about this body, I will take it off your hands. If only to avoid being dragged off this mortal coil in your wake when you eventually succumb to pneumonia.”

Terra wiped sopping strands of hair out of his eyes and grunted. A grunt here and there tended to placate his little passenger. An ‘uh-huh’ or an ‘oh right’ also sufficed, and he seemed particularly pleased when Terra offered the odd ‘that’s really interesting', as if he couldn’t read sarcasm at all and was just appreciative to have somebody listening.

It was almost charming, if not for literally everything else about the situation.

After all, the only reason Terra was out wandering around in the rain rather than sitting in the warmth and dryness of his house was because this little ‘no ignoring’ rule had made it almost impossible to keep his condition inconspicuous to Aqua and Ventus. The odd mutter to himself would hardly be cause for concern, but when he had to do it _all day_ , and for most of the night too… well, if they walked past his bedroom door and happened to hear him grunting away, he didn't want them to think he was just unashamedly giving himself a good time or something. Not that were was any more chance of that happening than there was before. His sexual hang-ups aside, he'd woken the last few nights to find Xemnas dozing on the other side of Terra's bed, apparently determined not to give Terra even a couple of hours to himself. When Terra went ballistic, Xemnas informed him, "I am not accustomed to sleeping on the floor."

"Um, hello? Have you forgotten you're a ghost? You can't even _feel_ the floor! What the hell does it matter where you sleep?"

"It is the principle of the matter."

"Here's the principle of the matter - this is _my_ bed! I'll put down a rug for you in the living room or something if you're so fussy, but you're not staying in here. And we're definitely not sharing."

"Put down a rug for me," Xemnas repeated. "Do you take me for some kind of pet?" He'd promptly rolled away, showing Terra the back of his head. "If this is the treatment I'm to expect, perhaps I shall go to Aqua's bed. At least there I can count on some peace and quiet."

Terra nearly had an aneurysm at the thought. "Don't even - if you - I swear I'll-"

"Then stop hassling me and let me sleep." And that had been the end of that. Terra had lain there the whole night in a fuming rage. The cheek of _Xemnas_ demanding peace and quiet aside, the idea Aqua's personal boundaries could be so thoroughly trashed without her consent or awareness was horrifying. He hadn't even considered the possibility. While he suspected Xemnas probably wouldn't do anything of the sort, simply because it was so ungentlemanly, it was the other one he was worried about. Ansem was far slippier than his counterpart and from what Terra had heard about his history with Riku, he knew the groundwork was already in place for such a crime. But when Terra tracked him down and told him to stay away from her, Ansem had just smiled coldly and said, "Oh, you don't need to worry about that. She happens to be missing a few of my favourite bits."

"Well... Stay away from _Ventus_ , then."

"Hm. The boy doesn't interest me either." Terra thought the look Ansem had given him then had been a tad too appraising.

Considering Xemnas was evidently the lesser of two evils here, maybe the situation wasn't as bad as it could have been. That's what Terra told himself anyway. Especially on days like this when he felt like he may as well have been forced to walk at gun point, shivering under lashing sheets of rain and enduring an endless assault on his eardrums of philosophical twaddle and boring stories about people he didn't know and places he'd never been.

"I must say, this is nothing compared to the storms in the World That Never Was," Xemnas said, as Terra turned them out of the park and back onto the street. "Even a coat did not serve; the rain would blow straight up under your hood. I suspect Xigbar made a game of toying with the planet's gravitational pull just to irritate me."

"Yeah," said Terra dryly. "That sounds like Xigbar alright. What a funny guy. What a _hoot_." A car zoomed through a puddle on the side of the road and sent a wave of dirty water crashing over Terra's legs and feet. He bit back the mounting urge to scream.

"He had his moments, indeed," said Xemnas, once again missing the sarcasm. "Did you hear any news of his recompletion? I am curious to know where he is and what he might be doing."

"No idea."

"And the rest of my Organisation? I know of those who returned to Radiant Garden, but what about the others?"

"Haven’t a clue. Look them up in the directory or something if you really want to know.” He was being too cheeky. Xemnas stopped short; Terra went on insistently for several paces before turning back to face him with a groan. “Listen, I’ve been in the Land of Departure this whole time. It’s not like we’ve all kept in touch.”

“Who is this 'we'?”

"You know, the..." He blushed. "... the Guardians of Light." He hated that name. It made him want to shrivel up in a little ball. He never felt very light or like much of a guardian, not with his history with the darkness.

“You refer to Roxas and that piece of detritus, Axel. I have no care for either of them. I am specifically asking after those with merit as individuals. If you have not heard anything of Xigbar, then what about, say, Luxord?”

“No idea. Also, for future reference, Axel is Lea now. He isn't one of your Nobodies any more."

Xemnas waved that off. "You may call garbage whatever you like. It doesn't cease being garbage. "

"Oh," said Terra. "Right." That was a bit mean, not that Terra was going to argue on Lea's behalf. He didn't know the man very well but he was under the impression he wasn't Terra's number one fan. Even after the hugs and celebration and all their drunken merriment on the beach, he'd seen outright contempt in the redhead's eyes when they looked at each other. “So, what did you do to him?”

“Pardon?”

“Lea. He's..." A group of young men hurried down the pavement with their jackets pulled up over their heads, pushing each other into puddles and laughing. They passed through Xemnas and subsequently nearly trampled over Terra, as if he too were invisible. Terra stepped aside and waited until they were gone before starting up again. "He's weird with me, I assume that was to do with you. Did you give him too many shifts scrubbing toilets or something?”

Xemnas's eyes followed the men as they all bundled under the shelter of a tree further down the road. “He was certainly fit for little else. His arrogance and egotism were ideal traits for the grimy sort of work I conferred upon him, but made him unpleasant company in the extreme. His job was to dispose of traitors in our midst, and in the end he couldn’t even be trusted do that correctly, falling short of even the lowest expectations I had of him."

"Oh," said Terra again. "Uh, right. That's really interesting."

But Xemnas wasn't done. "I am not surprised he swindled his way into your little circle of light. The man's hubris was unimaginable. He was always looking to slither into the next new opportunity to strut around and feel superior to better men, never having accomplished anything in his useless life to justify it.”

Terra had to bite his lip to stop himself from laughing out loud. What the hell was he supposed to say to _that_? At least Lea was had made it out of the war alive and all in one piece. He hadn't been reduced to some pitiful whisp, forced to cling to another person's body for lifeblood. In Terra's books that automatically made him far less wretched than Xemnas.

Another car saw fit to whizz by at that very moment and soak him through to his skin once again, and he realised he'd had more than enough of this nonsense for one evening. "To hell with this, I'm going home."

"Yes, it is important that you do. Ideally straight into a warm bath." Xemnas finally dragged his eyes away from the group of men. They were now singing bawdy songs as they waited for the rain to ease, clearly heading home from a night on the town. Terra glanced back curiously as they left, wondering what it was about them Xemnas found so interesting. Wondering too, if he had just imagined the mournful look on the Nobody's face as he turned away.

_________________________________________

The twelve years he spent in the darkness were twelve years worth of missed experiences, now long overdue. Terra was nearly thirty and he'd never had a girlfriend. Never held down a job, never learned how to drive. It was only after he lowered his keyblade, stepped off the battlefield and came back home did he realise just how much life had gone by without him. Over a decade of birthdays passed without a single card. Weddings no one invited him to and funerals that couldn't be held off until the event of his return.

His mother was buried in the public cemetery - under one of dozens of identical grey stones boxed in by high, wrought iron gates and the roar of city traffic. He had taken one look at the inscription, which dated her death to some three years previously, and then turned on his heel and left. He hadn't gone back. Sometimes he would think about her when he was up in the high mountains, sitting in front of Master Eraqus's grave, but it almost didn't feel right to mourn her. Not when she spent the last years of her life thinking he'd just walked out on her and never bothered to keep in contact, just like his father had. And now it was too late to explain, too late to put that wrong to right. The chance had been snatched out his hands and lost under six feet of tightly compacted earth.

He really hoped she hadn't died all alone.

"My aunt left me a house," Aqua told him. Her hand squeezed his tightly. "Come and stay with me."

At that time, there was no way he could have refused her. He looked at her sometimes and could barely even believe she was real; so warm and solid beneath his fingertips. She could have asked him to move into a cardboard box with her and he'd have agreed, just to be close to her. He had dreamed of this moment so many times, when he might wake up beside her in bed. Bring her breakfast and make love to her late into the afternoon. Finally living his own life with the woman of his dreams and knowing what it felt like to be touched. To be kissed. To be held and pleasured and wanted and _loved_. That dream had been like a shaft of light from the heavens, piercing through the black skies of the solitary little world he'd come to know.

Unfortunately, while the nightmare with Xehanort was over, his dreams weren't waiting in line to become reality just like that. One of the hardest lessons he had to learn in the first few weeks of their new lives was that Aqua was not just a fantasy inside his head. She was a person. He'd almost forgotten that in the time they spent apart, so used to thinking of her as the embodiment of everything good and beautiful in the world - an angel fallen to earth from the heavens. Even the most shallow parts of him had to reconcile themselves with her humanness. With time quickly catching up on them, her mouth was starting to line. Her body was older; sharper at its edges than the full-breasted, curvaceous teenager in his memories.

She was tired, and Terra was only just realising how sick he felt in his own skin, and the house they moved into wasn't exactly the most romantic location for the start of their love story. Aqua's aunt had bequeathed her a narrow, three-bed terrace. Creaky floors. Tiny, slanted rooms. Dated, ugly furniture and a weird smell of cats.

"We should get rid of these and buy some new ones," Terra had stupidly said, when they were going through boxes of hideous patterned chinaware. "I mean, look at this. It has kittens with pink bows on it..." Aqua shot him such a poisonous look, his voice trailed off into meek silence.

She was ridiculously sentimental about the place. Snapping at them if they tracked mud in through the threadbare carpets, or if they put down a cup on the coffee table without a coaster. One day Ven accidentally smashed one of those ugly kitten saucers and she looked like she was about to burst into tears. Terra thought it was all a bit much, even if he did understand on some level. His childhood home had been demolished and built over with apartments. He didn't know what had happened to all his mother's stuff, but he might've liked to hold on to some of it. A photograph at the very least.

He slipped through the front door as quietly as he could, dripping puddles everywhere. “Aqua will go mad if she sees me leaving water all over her floor,” he whispered to Xemnas, who watched with a wrinkled nose as Terra toed off his boots. Underneath, even his socks were soaked through. He peeled them off and rolled up the sodden hems of his trousers.

“You do seem fond of making unnecessary mess,” Xemnas said. “Perhaps you should summon your keyblade and start smashing up some more furniture, just to bring yourself up to your usual standard.”

“Very funny.” Terra flicked on the hall light. At that very moment, he heard chair legs scrape back against the floor and next thing, Aqua came striding out of the kitchen. She stopped short at the sight of him, her blue eyes wide. “I know, I know!” he declared preemptively, holding up his hands. “I’ll get this all mopped up in a minute, I just want to go get changed.”

She put her face in her hands, breathing heavily through her nose.

“Aqua? Hey.” He reached for her and, to his immense surprise, she took several steps back, ducking out of his grasp. “Hey,” he said again. “Look, I’ll run and grab the mop now. Sorry, I wasn’t thinking–”

“Terra,” she interrupted. “What the hell is _wrong_ with you?”

His mouth fell open. She’d never spoken to him like that before. There was a few long minutes of silence where he just stared at her. “Wait, this isn’t about getting water on the floor, is it?”

“Are you joking?” She lifted her head from her hands. “Are you actually joking?”

In his head he tried to pinpoint his crime, but there was a decade of endless possibilities. “Aqua, just tell me what I've done! It’s me, come on.” He held a hand back out to her, hoping she’d just smile and let it go, whatever it was.

A muscle twitched in her cheek, but otherwise she didn’t move. His heart sank. He dropped his arm back down to his side. Overhead, he could hear the floorboards creak as someone tried to tiptoe across their room out into the hallway to listen.

“Don’t take me for an idiot, Terra,” she said finally. “What were you thinking, going out in that storm in the middle of the night? With no _coat_? Why do you keep doing this?”

Oh. He felt giddy all of a sudden, overwhelmed by a rush of relief and affection. Some things never changed. Even after all this time Aqua was still that same mother hen at heart, something he always found so adorable and yet so infuriating about her.

“It wasn’t raining when I went out,” he insisted. “And it’s not the middle of the night, it’s–” His eyes landed on the hallway clock and he paused. It was half past midnight. How long had he actually been out there, wandering around with that pain in the ass jabbering away in his ear? It was still sunny when he left the house. “Okay, sorry. I must have lost track of time, but it’s not like I make a habit of doing things like this–”

“Just _stop_ it,” she said, silencing him as effectively as a slap. “You're always sneaking away without telling us where you’re going. Being all weird about it. Terra, the other night you ran out of here at like three in the morning without even putting your shoes on! Don't even deny it, because I saw you. I even called you out the window and you just ignored me!" She bit her lip. “I tried to follow but I couldn’t keep up, and then when you came home, _hours_ later, your feet were all bruised and bloody. I waited for you to come and offer me some kind of explanation for your behaviour, just like I waited for you to properly explain why you trashed my bathroom that time, but it never came. You just pretended it didn’t even happen!”

All the words jammed in his throat and died there. He didn’t know what to say.

He didn't anticipate he'd be confronted over this. Of course they had noticed his weird behaviour, but... hadn’t the three of them come to an unspoken arrangement not to get all up in each other’s business? He had no excuses prepared; nothing that would put her mind at rest. The truth was out of the question. This was the place where they were supposed to be moving on from the past, the three of them together. He’d take the damn truth to the grave before he unearthed that Xehanort-shaped can of worms and emptied it all over the floor at their feet. Bringing that pain back into their lives.

His brain tripped and stumbled over his options as she stood there waiting, a pinched expression on her face that was remarkably reminiscent of Master Eraqus when he was disappointed.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Terra said, and nearly clapped a hand over his mouth in horror.

Aqua’s eyes widened. “Terra,” she breathed, sounding just as shocked as he felt.

“I mean...” He ran his hands through his wet hair with a sigh. Did he really want to get into an argument? His immediate thought was no, and yet...

He really wished Xemnas wasn’t listening in on this. Looming over Terra's shoulder like some great bloody vulture, bearing witness as Terra failed at being a half-decent friend. In the periphery of his vision, he even saw him shaking his silver head. If anything, that just pissed him off even more.

“Look, Aqua. I’m a grown man. What I need to do to deal with everything is my business, and sometimes I just need to get out of the house for some fresh air. I’m entitled to that, aren’t I? Do I really have to check in with you first? Like you’re my _mother_?”

She was shaking her head too. "You're misrepresenting the situation, Terra. If you were just going out for a run to clear your head I'd have no problem, but it's just... you're going about it in a way that's so mindlessly destructive. I don't want you to get hurt. I don't want to watch you hurt yourself. I've seen enough of that for a lifetime."

The sadness on her face crushed his irritation like a ton of bricks.

A towel suddenly toppled down the stairs. "Thought you might want to dry off," came Ven's disembodied voice, sounding very small and apologetic. Terra could see his bare toes curled into the carpet on the top step.

"Oh. Um, thanks." Terra stomach's twisted. He picked up the towel and draped it over his head, covering his face so he wouldn't have to make eye contact with anyone. Cold shame crept in in the wake of his anger, colder even than the rain.

"Yes, you should go get into dry clothes," said Aqua. "Sorry. I've been holding you down here when you're probably freezing."

"It's fine. Look, what I said, I didn't mean-"

"We can talk about it in the morning. I'm not letting you get sick because of me."

"No, really, I don't want to leave it like this-"

"Terra." Aqua's tone left no room to argue. "It's late. I have to get up in the morning and I want to go to bed." She walked straight past him without waiting for a response, without even saying goodnight. Ven scurried out of her way on the stairs, leaving Terra alone in the hallway.

Well, mostly alone.

“You should not lie to her.”

Terra didn’t look at Xemnas as he waited for the bath to fill, opting instead to stare into the corner of the room. They’d piled all their bathroom supplies there until the destroyed unit was replaced. He really had to get round to doing that soon. “I’ve given Aqua enough grief.”

“Your dishonesty will cut the most grievous of wounds when it is discovered.”

“Well then, why don’t you just fuck off?” Terra hissed. “This is _your_ fault, you know! You and that creepy little twin of yours. If I didn’t have to deal with the two of you, me and Aqua would be–”

“You’d be what? Walking hand in hand along the beach? Having candlelit dinners in the park? Please. Even an idiot could ascertain your issues with this girl go back way further than the last couple of weeks.”

Terra couldn't stand the condescending tone in his voice. “Then that makes you an idiot, because we don’t have issues. Stop talking about us as if you know us.”

“I am trying to help you.”

Barking out a laugh, “Yeah, I’m sure you’re an expert on relationships.” He grabbed a container of scented salts from the pile and emptied it into the bath. “Did you even allow women in your Organisation? I thought it was all men.”

“There was one woman, yes.”

“One woman.” Terra rolled his eyes. “Wow, you're right. You really are qualified to give me advice.”

“There was also a puppet who occasionally assumed the appearance of a female.”

"Are you kidding me?"

But Xemnas’s face showed absolutely no trace of awareness of how ridiculous he sounded. God, he was such a weirdo. It made it hard to stay annoyed at him. Terra sighed. "Okay then, what almighty counsel do you have for me on the subject of women, man who has only ever known one and half women?” He started peeling off his wet clothes. “Look away for a minute.”

“I have already seen you.”

“It doesn’t matter. Look away.”

“It was nothing new the first instance, in any case.”

Terra blushed slightly. “I said it doesn't matter. I’m asking you to look away.” Xemnas turned to face the wall. As Terra stripped himself bare, he ran a quick eye over the lines of the other man's body, obscured beneath heavy black leather. Were they really identical all the way down? Even down _there_? His blush deepened as he lowered himself into the bath, only for him to launch himself back up again in an instant, splashing water all over the floor.

“ _Ouch!_ Oh fucking – what the hell?”

“You only needed to use about two cups worth of salts,” said Xemnas, still facing the tiles. “The whole container was a bit much. Now they will not dissolve.”

“And this day was already going so well,” Terra grumbled. He shunted about until his ass was on a less spiky section of bath. “You can look now, by the way.”

“My advice to you is this,” said Xemnas as he turned to face him. “Do not take her affection for granted. There is only so much strain a relationship can withstand before it will inevitably snap. It is far easier to nurse the wounded back to health than it is to bring the dead back to life.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Yes.”

A snort. "One of the perks of being the Superior, I suppose.”

Xemnas raised an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

“This sole woman in your Organisation. I assume it was her and not your occasionally female puppet.”

“You should not make a habit of making assumptions about people. I happen to be homosexual."

Terra blinked. "Oh," he said. "Right."

“But yes, I did have a partner in the Organisation."

“Oh," he said again. "Right."

“A male partner.”

“Yes, I – I know what homosexual means!” Xemnas and Ansem both? Was that just down to chance or...?

“I assure you the mechanics are not all that different." 

"Was Xehanort gay too?"

He wished he could have taken a photograph at that moment. It was the first time he'd seen Xemnas genuinely look taken aback. "And dare I ask what relevance that question has to anything?"

"Well, you two didn't get it from me," said Terra. "I'm straight."

There was a short pause. "You do not 'get' gay from anyone. It's not contagious."

"I know that," said Terra quickly. "That's not what I meant. I'm trying to say - there's not _that_ much difference between a person and their Nobody, right? Like Axel and Lea weren't two different people with different personalities and different relationships or whatever, so, you know. Doesn't sexuality and things like that get transferred over?" A thought occurred to him and he immediately plunged after it, realising he was starting to sound both like an idiot and the type of creep who used to give offensive sermons at his church as a child. "Wait a minute, what was the deal with him and Master Eraqus, then? Were they-? No, they wouldn't have. Master Eraqus definitely wouldn't stoop that low - and I don't mean it like, because it was two men - I just mean because it was Xehanort... _You know what I mean!"_ He dragged his hands over his eyes, groaning.

"Yes, I can see the point you are trying to make," said Xemnas. "Though I have never met anyone so ineloquent, and I have met some unimaginable pillocks in my time."

Terra's face burned. He ducked further under his bath water. Now the tap wasn't running, he really needed to keep his voice down. He definitely didn't want Aqua or Ventus pressing their ear to the door and hearing him blathering away to himself after their argument, especially about _this_.

"Even if there were some truth to what you are saying," Xemnas began slowly. "You should avoid trying to compartmentalise people and their experiences into neat little boxes. I did that my whole life, so arrogant to think I could map out a person's soul into equations on a page, and yet I never came close to understanding the complexities and nuances of the heart. Ansem and I are unusual in the sense of being 'branches' of another's body, but we are not Xehanort. Nor are we you, we are our own individuals. No one chooses the circumstances of their creation and I am reluctant to assign any part of my individual experience as a lover to that man. He was not there, he has no part of it."

“Okay. I'm sorry."

"As for Eraqus," he continued. "I do not know. I believe for any part of Xehanort that may have loved him, there was another part that just as readily despised him. You can make of that what you will."

That seemed like an avoidance of the question, but Terra just nodded. "So what happened to your boyfriend?" he asked. "Where is he now? Was he recompleted? Is he one of the ones you were asking about?”

Xemnas closed his eyes. "It does not matter any more. In the right place, at the right time, we might have been very happy together. But our relationship was built on lies. I betrayed him and... I believe he betrayed me too. It is over. Even in the event that I am made flesh again, I do not believe any love can survive such a fatal blow.”

"You can talk about him, if you want." He was done listening to himself stick his foot in his mouth for the umpteenth time today. "What was his name?"

"His name was Saïx. That is all I am willing to say."

A long, uncomfortable silence fell after that. While Terra tried to discreetly shift in the bath so that the salts weren't scraping against anything valuable, Xemnas continued to stand there with his fingertips pressed to his chest and his eyes closed, like some kind of absurd statue of a forlorn lover.

"So wait," said Terra. "You don't have anyone waiting for you? No one at all?" That seemed incredibly sad. He tried to imagine coming home without Aqua or Ventus. A cold, empty kitchen and silence in the hallways. No one to talk to except for these ghouls. Horrendous.

"The world does not stop spinning because of one heartbreak. As long as I am alive, the path below my feet will go on. People to meet, places to see. Death on the other hand, is so final." Xemnas opened his eyes again. "My relationship may be over but that isn't to say I will never know love again. I think I would like a family some day."

"Really? Like a wife and kids? Uh, husband and kids, I mean?" He had a sudden vision of Aqua in a flowing white gown, coming down the between the pews with the light framing her face. That was then immediately followed by a jarring vision of her crestfallen expression from earlier. He quickly forced all thoughts of her out of his head.

"Brothers," Xemnas clarified. "And sisters. I have never known the unconditional love of a parent or sibling, but I hope it is not an avenue lost to me entirely. I have always liked the idea of being one of many siblings who meet up at the weekends to have tea and talk about our lives together."

"But isn't Ansem basically your brother?"

The barest suggestion of a smile vanished off Xemnas's face in a heartbeat. "No."

"Oh." When an explanation didn't come, Terra asked, "So, uh. Why not?"

Xemnas's brow furrowed. “He is part of my natural body, cut away and remade in the likeness of something whole. A warped refraction, nothing more." There was a short pause. "If someone were to chop off your arm and a person grew out of it, would you call it your brother? As if it were comparable to having been born from the same parents as you?" He scoffed. "Ridiculous.”

Obviously the insinuation had annoyed him. “I guess not.”

“By that same logic, you would assert Xehanort was basically my father. A father does not send son after son to die for him in battle. It is simply not done.”

“You’d be surprised,” Terra said. He wasn’t particularly interested in getting his head around the intricacies of inter-Xehanort relations, but what Xemnas was saying definitely wasn't true. “I can't even remember what my dad looks like. He left me and my mum when I was a child, I don’t even know if he’s still alive. All those years I was a prisoner in my own body and he was just...”

Just out there, living his best life and not caring enough about his own son to check in with him once to see if he was okay. Would he have even have lifted a finger if he knew Terra was suffering all that time? Where was that _unconditional love_ when Terra needed it the most? Was he just not deserving of it or something?

And to think Terra's mother probably had the same thoughts about him... Terra looked down at his toes, red from the heat and sticking up out of the water. He wiggled them about, watching his naked body distort under the ripples.

“Maybe my dad always knew I was going to be an asshole,” he said quietly.

"I doubt that very much," said Xemnas. "It is easy to walk away from the mistakes we make rather than confront them headlong. Your father took the coward's route. You, likewise, could have fled to any other human metropolis and began a life for yourself anew. But you understood what was important to you and made the choice to return to try to mend the hurt you have done. That is commendable."

Terra didn't say anything, but he was touched. Xemnas turned and left then through the wall, leaving him to the rest of his bath in peace. Later, when Terra felt his presence slip silently onto the bed beside him, he kept his eyes closed and pretended not to notice.

_________________________________________

That night, he dreamed of a small red-brick house on the outskirts of the city. A yellow tiled roof, a gnarled oak in the front garden. That was all gone now, smashed down and paved over and a sleek white highrise erected in its place, but in his dream it was the way it was the day his father left. A door slamming downstairs, his mother's sobs drifting up from the kitchen. A car pulling out of the driveway, never to return. He hadn't even bothered to say goodbye to his son.

Terra was too young at the time to understand what had happened. He didn't register the finality of it until years later, when he realised his father really wasn't coming back. What had he even been doing that day? Playing in his room, probably. Maybe watching TV. This time, however, he knew what he was about to lose. He got to his feet and ran down the stairs after him. Managed to make it out the front door just in time to watch the car turn onto the street.

To his horror, it wasn't the faceless man from his past who was driving. It was Master Eraqus. In the passenger seat, he could see Aqua, and in the back, Ventus. Their eyes were gold and empty.

"Wait!" he called. "Wait, Aqua! Ven! It's me! _Wait_!"

But no one heard him. The car drove away, growing smaller and smaller until it completely vanished from sight. Terra was left alone on the street, the sounds of the birds falling away, the sun vanishing behind the clouds. A shadow slid under his skin and grasped hold of his heart with clawed fingers, silencing him before he managed to draw the breath to scream-

He jolted awake, gasping. His fingers fumbled at his chest underneath his sleep shirt.

"Bad dreams?"

Terra nearly didn't look round, dreading the sight of those piercing gold eyes. His nightmares come to life. But Xemnas was just squinting at him blearily, the pale light of the dawn illuminating the striped pattern of Terra's bed sheets through his face. There was nothing particularly horrible about him in that moment; he just looked like something small, tired and see-through. Terra felt himself relax.

"I'm fine," he said.

Outside, he could hear birds chirping in the beginning of a new day. Terra glanced at his bedside clock and sighed, flopping back down and trying to arrange his blankets into some semblance of comfort. Xemnas didn't protest as he accidentally flailed a leg or flung an elbow through him. When Terra checked, he'd already fallen back asleep. A weird thought occurred to him as he finally settled, that the first person he was sharing a bed with was a _man_ , not a woman. Not Aqua. And it wasn't even a man he _liked_. It'd be different if he and Ventus had drifted off in the same bed because they'd been up talking too late or something, but Xemnas had just been... inflicted on him, not that the other man had much of a choice in the body he originated from. They'd been inflicted on each other, he supposed.

He gave his pillow a few absent-minded punches. Life was so weird.

The last vestiges of his nightmare were just wearing off when he felt discomfort prickling suddenly on the back of his neck. He crept an eye open. Ansem was looming over his side of the bed, his arms folded across chest. His stare made Terra's blood run cold. Terra pulled his blankets up to his chin before he could think better of it.

"Don't you two look cosy," said Ansem.

"What's wrong? You jealous?" Terra rolled his eyes, trying to appear more aloof than he really felt. "What do you want?"

Ansem surveyed him for a moment. “I should warn you. Xemnas is taking you for a ride.”

“What do you mean?”

“He's not a complete fool. He knows he has to convince you he’s 'reformed' if you’re to grant him another lease on life. Whatever side of himself he shows to you is only a facsimile of a bettered man. You had it right when we spoke before. Once he has his own body, do you really think he won’t flit off into the night back to his old ways? You know what a Nobody is, don’t you?”

In all honesty, Terra wasn't really clear on the minutiae of the subject. All that came after he was possessed. When Master Yen Sid sat him down to explain the last decade in full to him, he'd only half listened to the details of what his body got up to after it was no longer under his control. It had all sounded so horrific. All those nameless children in the basement of that castle. Whole worlds succumbing to darkness. So many lost souls, claimed by the very same hands that clutched his blankets even closer in the sudden cold of the room. Even if he hadn't been the one pulling the strings, they were still _Terra's_ hands...

He had a grotesque vision of all his limbs hanging on hooks on the wall, Xehanort lifting them down to use at his leisure. He clenched his fists until his nails bit painfully into his palms.

“Let me remind you." Ansem's smile cut like a knife. "As a Nobody, Xemnas is nothing more than a shell. _My_ shell, technically. I got the heart and the soul, he got the flesh and bone I left behind. That's all he is and ever will be. Cursed to drag himself through life with an emptiness inside him he can never fully ignore. It won't be long before he's back collecting other Nobodies like trinkets and slapping them around to make himself feel better. Sending them to meddle in the affairs of other worlds and conducting his seedy little experiments. A normal life will never satisfy him, no matter what he tells you. You should pity him, certainly," he added, almost as a afterthought. "But you should never trust him.”

Terra glanced quickly at Xemnas to make sure he was still asleep. He didn't understand why the hell Ansem was telling him this. "Part of giving him a body would mean giving _you_ a body," he said. "Why would you... are you just self-sabotaging for the fun of it or something? Surely me trusting Xemnas works in your favour too?"

A shrug. "Unlike Xemnas, I have no faith in you whatsoever, not even in your gullibility. You are cowardly, insecure and intellectually compromised. You will never have the courage or the mental fortitude to roll up in Radiant Garden and make a case on our behalf. The sooner Xemnas realises this, the sooner we can move on from this pathetic charade."

"Oh, you mean onto your 'more forceful' method?" Terra snorted, not concerned. And by this point, he was used to the insults. "Hate to remind you, but the last time you tried that, it didn't even work."

Ansem leered at him. "Boy, stop while you're ahead. You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Whatever. Maybe next time you might make it two miles before I knock you back on your ass where you belong."

He hadn't quite expected Ansem to laugh at that as if it was the most hilarious thing he'd ever heard, but that's what happened. Terra watched, slightly disturbed. On his other side, Xemnas sighed as he sat up, no longer able to sleep through the ruckus.

"Apparently I have missed the punchline".

"Uh," said Terra. "Yeah, me too."

Sharply, "Ansem, do keep it down."

"My sincere apologies," said Ansem, not sounding sincere in the slightest. His teeth were a slice of white in the dark of the room. "The boy was just telling me a funny joke."

"Stop calling me _boy_ ," said Terra. "I'm thirty years old."

"What joke was that? Was it the time you let three halfwit children whisk away a valuable target from right under your very nose?" Xemnas snorted. "Yes, I suppose I'd laugh too, if you hadn't made our entire operation look so woefully inadequate."

"Excuse me," said Ansem coolly. "If we're going to talk about inadequacy, perhaps we should discuss how quickly your little underlings jumped at the chance to stab you in the back. What does that say about how good you are at getting people to like you, Xemnas? Even the ones you were fucking wanted you dead."

Xemnas tensed.

"Oh for god's sake, don't start," said Terra.

They ignored him. Of course they did.

He turned his eyes wearily to the ceiling as they bickered back and forth. Well, that was sleep off the table for tonight, then. His thoughts strayed inevitably back to Xehanort. Imagining him playing golf on some sunny green somewhere, mopping sweat off his forehead with a hank of chestnut hair and using Terra's severed leg to putt the ball in the hole.


	3. Chapter 3

Terra didn't wake up until late in the day. When he finally prised his eyes open, he was surprised to see the afternoon sun filter in through the curtains. He was even more surprised to find himself alone. There was not a single silver hair in sight.

A quick feel to their locations put that grey mist in the garden, and the dark tide just beyond. Maybe the two of them were still arguing, or maybe they'd kissed and made up. Maybe they were standing out there, glaring in opposite directions in silence like stroppy children. Terra didn't care. A sleepy grin spread across his face.

It sent a pleased buzz through his body to think he had some time to himself for once. After all those years of being alone, he never thought he'd crave such a thing. He rolled over and stretched across the lovely, newly free other side of his bed - only to yelp in pain when he accidentally jammed his morning wood into the mattress.

He flipped back over, adjusting himself inside his boxers, his grin gone in an instant.

This again.

He wasn't a teenager any more but he sure felt like one, waking up hard more often than not. Maybe his body was currently going through some weird post-possession second puberty. Or maybe this was completely commonplace at his age and he just had no idea? Who was he going to talk to about this sort of stuff, after all? _Ventus_? He snorted at the thought.

Distantly, he could hear the clatter of pots on the hob, someone singing. The smell of frying sausages. Terra's stomach growled. He had every intention on dragging himself out of bed and trudging downstairs for a delicious breakfast, but his hand was still under the waistband of his boxers. Touching his hard dick, grasping it loosely.

Sweat gathered quickly on his palm, the beat of his pulse throbbing in the soft, damp heat. It felt weird. But he remembered how it good this _could_ feel, how good it had felt before.

He glanced over at the door to check it was closed. Usually, he would just ignore it. Get up with every thought focussed on the day ahead, dispelling the tension in his groin through sheer force of will. Today, though, he found himself hesitating. Maybe it was the thought of not knowing when he'd get the chance to try again, considering Xemnas's insistence on plastering himself to Terra's side most hours of the day and night. He gave himself a few experimental squeezes. 

This was just a bodily function. Just biology. Just blood and nerve endings and release. It was better to think of it as the process, the anatomy, rather than... than the idea he was pleasuring himself. He exhaled shakily and glanced down.

A spot of precum had appeared on the front of his boxers.

Ugh. Gross.

He wrinkled his nose, but made no move to take his boxers off or pull his hand out from beneath the fabric. There was just no way he could bear to look at himself when he was doing this. His eyes slid ceiling-ward. Anatomy, he reminded himself. Just a body part.

Taking his time, he ran a fingertip up and down his length, mapping out the veins, the thatch of wiry hair at the base. Feeling the tension inside him coil tight. God, this _was_ weird. It felt so alien to him, like it wasn't even his own dick, and yet... another part of him moved his fingers instinctively, knowing exactly where to press and lavish attention to coax those little sparks of pleasure he hadn't felt in so many years. He kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling, breathing heavily through his nose. When the strain was too much, when he was so hard he felt he might split open, he wrapped his hand around fully and began to jerk off in earnest.

A little "ah," slipped out before he could stop himself. He bit his lip, his face burning. His eyes darted back over to the door.

He was right on the brink before he could bring himself to finally look down at himself. His fist moving back and forth under fabric of his boxers, jostling his waistband out place to show a peek of the action beneath. The flushed pink tip of his erection, the little beads of precum stringing against his stomach and smearing over the curl of his fingers.

Even with a long-awaited orgasm finally within his reach, Terra's hand slowed to a stop. There was a sudden uneasiness under his skin, like an itch on his bones, and the longer he lay there waiting for it to pass, the more unavoidable it became. His eyes flew back to the door, this time almost certain he'd find people gathered there, craning their heads to stare at him. Hiding their grins behind their hands. Pointing their fingers. Laughing. 

There was no one there. The door was closed, but he could still feel their eyes on him. Piercing through the roof of the house and up through the floors to where he lay there on the bed.

His stomach in knots, he took his hand out of his boxers. He swung his legs off the mattress. He nearly tripped over the tangled sheets in the increasing urgency to get his clothes on, stumbling into his sweatpants and pulling a t-shirt so viciously over his head he got stuck in one of the arm holes. By the time he righted himself, his heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was about to burst right out of his chest.

It was incredible, really, how quickly his pleasure had turned into dread. He couldn't even sense Ansem or Xemnas any more.

It would have been easy to put the blame for this on them. Who's to say they wouldn't be spying on him, anyway? Hadn't he broached that very subject with them before, out of paranoia they were doing just that? Look at who they were, after all. Look at the terrible things they had done to people. They both deserved to be branded with that red mark - done, case closed. File this little episode away under Xehanort's endless catalogue of crimes, just another thing for Terra to fume about in righteous anger.

But he knew, deep down, that this had nothing to do with them.

He plopped dejectedly onto the floor, sitting with his back pressed to the wall. The problem wasn't them. He'd been struggling with this long before the two of them came slithering into his life. It wasn't even Xehanort, not really. Xehanort wasn't here any more.

"You're the problem," he whispered to himself. "You're the problem."

Was this even just about his body any more? He didn’t deny himself any of its other needs. He gave it food and water to sustain it, he made himself sleep to rest it. He washed this body, exercised it. Of course, sex was way more personal; too intimate a thing to have flung into the public sphere and then reclaimed without some trial and tribulation. But he knew he _wanted_ sex. He wanted to share himself and everything he was with the woman he loved... and that was the problem, wasn't it? He couldn't help but think the truth was he didn’t hate his body as much as he hated the person inside it.

Everything that made him _Terra_ was more than his outer shell; the blood, the guts, the bones, the skin. Just as what made Xemnas _Xemnas_ endured after his casing perished out there in the graveyard. And where exactly did that leave him?

Terra was a bad friend. He was a bad son. He was just... bad. Did bad people deserve good things? Did they deserve to have a family, or such perfect friends as he had? Did they deserve to feel _good_?

A knock came at the door. So wrapped up in self-pity, he thought of ignoring it. But when Ven's voice called his name, he willed his breathing to slow down and popped the door open a fraction.

"Hey, lazy," Ven smiled. "I was wondering if you wanted some lunch? I made too much."

The sight of him brought the events of the previous night all screaming back.

"Aqua!" Terra all but shouted, flinging the door fully open. "Oh shit, I forgot."

"Oh, but-" Ven began as Terra darted past him and down the hallway towards Aqua's bedroom. "You missed her. She already left."

“She left? What do you mean she left?” Terra's nightmare came back to him in a flash; that car driving away down the road, never to be seen again. “Where did she go? When is she coming back? Did she say anything about last night? Did she still seem annoyed? She didn't leave a note or anything?”

He said all of this in one long, unbroken breath.

"She went to Twilight Town," said Ven, hesitantly. "I think she's meeting up with some of the girls... Terra, are you okay?"

Terra looked down at himself quickly, making sure he was decent. His erection had wilted, but every line in his body still felt as tightly strung as a bow. It took a lot of smiles and reassurance before the strained look on Ven's face faded, and even then Ven still insisted on putting him together some lunch.

He'd somehow managed to burn all the sausages to a crisp. Terra tried not to wince as the charred little sticks of meat tumbled out of the pan onto his plate.

"I was thinking we could maybe head over there ourselves later?" Ven was saying. "Maybe for a night or two? Only if you're up for it, of course. If you're not feeling well then maybe you should rest."

"Head over where?"

"Twilight Town."

Terra couldn't think of anything he'd rather do less. All he wanted to do was get into a scalding hot shower and scrub himself until he was red and raw. He took a bite out of a burnt sausage and had to fight not to spit it onto the floor. "Yeah, that would be cool. Will we book a hotel?"

"Roxas and Lea said we could kip at theirs."

Yeah, _no way_. He could imagine the sort of ranting and raving that would be going on in his ear if he was in the same vicinity as Lea for even five minutes. "I might book a hotel room, if that's alright." When Ven looked confused, he added, "You know, just for some space."

Darkness suddenly crept over his consciousness like a spider. “Oh, you're finally awake," a cold clear voice declared. "Looks like we’ll have to cancel that call to the undertaker who was coming to haul your fat corpse away."

Terra tried to turn his flinch into a casual re-adjustment of his position on his chair. He didn't look over at the tall figure that materialised in the corner of the room.

Thankfully, Ven didn't notice his squirming. He was staring very hard down at his plate, his face slightly pink. "Can I ask you something? And I don't... I don't mean it as an attack or anything, but..."

It was Terra's turn to flush. "I'm not going to get angry. I didn't mean to last night, by the way, Aqua was just - I felt a little cornered, she caught me off guard-"

"I know," said Ven. "I don't agree with how she brought it up to you, but she was just really worried. We both are. And it's not just about you running out of here all the time, it's..." He was now redder than a tomato. "Terra, did you know you've been, um, talking to yourself? Like, a lot?"

"No," said Terra immediately. Instinctively.

Ven's face fell. "Oh."

"I mean, yes," he corrected. "It's nothing, though. Just a by-product from the whole possession thing. Sorry, I barely notice I do it any more."

"Dear, dear," said Ansem. "What was it Xemnas said to you last night? Your dishonesty will cut the most grievous of wounds when discovered? As if your poor little friends haven't suffered enough."

In spite of himself, Terra couldn't help but turn to him. "You were listening?"

"I didn't mean to," said Ventus. Terra's head whipped round so fast he got a crick in his neck. "And I'm not judging or having a go, I promise. I understand there's an adjustment period after... everything. I just wanted to say, you can always talk to me and Aqua. About anything. You don't have to carry what happened to you on your own shoulders. That's what friends are for, right?"

"Right," Terra breathed. He could feel himself start to sweat. He wasn't _thinking_. "Yeah. You're right."

Ven smiled. "Okay, great. So, uh, I guess we better go pack? Would four o'clock suit you for heading over?"

"Yeah," said Terra, feeling his stomach clench again. "Perfect."

"Great," said Ven again. "Do you want seconds? I've eaten enough."

He didn't have the heart to say no, so he was left there in the kitchen with a new plate of charred, inedible pig sitting in front of him on the table. Staring down at Ven's little offering, he felt the childish urge to run into the corner to cry.

"It does astound me that you warriors of light fought so relentlessly for this mystical concept of friendship," said Ansem, evidently enjoying himself. "Seeing it in practice, it is clear you don't even trust each other. I honestly will never understand it."

"Of course you'll never understand it," said Terra, rubbing his wet eyes. "You don't even know what love is."

"If love makes you this miserable then it seems best avoided."

"It makes it all worth it. Didn't you ever think there was more to life than chugging along like a machine until you're dead?"

There was a short pause. Terra looked up, but Ansem was already turning away, the back of his silvery head disappearing through the wall. Terra got to his feet and followed him out the back door. Outside, Xemnas was sitting on the edge of the porch. He didn't acknowledge either of them.

"Right, while you're both here, I have a favour to ask," Terra announced. "I'm going to Twilight Town for a few days. I need you two to just keep out of my way. Things are a bit tenuous with my friends and I don't want any weirdness going down. I don't want any voices chattering in my ear and I certainly want any snarky commentary or just... any of the usual, really. Sound good?"

It was as if he hadn't even spoke.

Terra scowled at Xemnas's back. "Sound good?" he repeated, louder.

"And how do you intend to repay this favour?" Xemnas asked. "Will you give me your assurances you will go to Radiant Garden as soon as you can and do your utmost to have our consciousnesses freed from this imprisonment?"

Ugh, Radiant Garden. Ugh, those scientists. It made Terra cold all over to think about it. He fiddled with the hem of his t-shirt. "Yeah, I'll consider it. I just have to get my own assurances first. You know, that they're not going to pin me down and start performing open surgery on me or something-"

"You'll _consider_ it. That's very generous of you."

"What's the urgency? Look, you know the situation is complicated."

"I imagine it must make you feel very powerful to know you've put my life on hold for as long as you see fit," Xemnas continued. He was staring down the garden as if the uncut grass was infinitely more fascinating than the two men standing behind him. "You must be enjoying it on some level, the indignity of it. Why else would you dawdle about and force me to bear witness as you stumble pathetically at every little hurdle of inconvenience life throws your way."

Nonplussed, Terra looked at Ansem for some sort of explanation. The Heartless gave him a cold smile in response. Were the two of them really still arguing? Was _everyone_ just in a bad mood today? He found his own temper rising. As if he wasn't already on edge without Xemnas lining up to use him as a metaphorical punching bag.

"I'm not enjoying this on any level, trust me," said Terra, a bite in his tone.

"Neither am I," said Xemnas. "Quite frankly, I am sick of the sight of you both."

Ouch. That shouldn't have stung, but it did. Terra had thought he and Xemnas had come to some degree of, well... maybe not kinship, but _understanding_. He'd been kind the night before, when it would have been so easy to be cruel. He'd tried to make Terra feel better. And now, in the cold light of day, he was just being a fucking asshole. Maybe these were just his true colours. Maybe Ansem was right and Terra _was_ wrong to think there might be something redeemable in either of them.

Terra shook his head. He didn't need this crammed onto his plate right now, along with everything else. Ven and Aqua were his only priority. As far as he was concerned, Xemnas could go fuck himself.

"You're right, I am in charge here," he said. "And I'm not going to say one more word about Radiant Garden until I get back, so just stay the hell away from me until then or you can wave goodbye to the idea entirely."

With those parting words, he went upstairs to pack for his trip.

_________________________________________

Acclimatised to the bracing mountain air and all the cold blues and lilacs of the Land of Departure, Terra's first thought stepping off the train in Twilight Town was that it was _cosy_. The warm amber sunset, the smell of croissants and coffee in the station. Endless chatter and laughter, especially from children. The Land of Departure had more of an aged population, but here it seemed there were children everywhere.

Most notably, in their welcome party.

Terra kept the smile pinned to his face as introductions and reintroductions were made. Some of these kids couldn't have been any older than fifteen or sixteen. Though he’d been a bit sceptical of meeting Lea again, he was glad of the man’s presence looming at the back. While Ventus did look older than his doppelgänger Roxas, without Lea there Terra would’ve towered a good foot and half taller than anybody else. And that would have been a bit weird, which begged the question as to whether Lea ever felt self-conscious that his best friends were a decade younger than him.

Maybe he was, because he held out his hand and said, “Hey, Terra. Good to see another adult around here, finally.”

Then again, nothing about Lea suggested insecurity on any level. He was wearing eyeliner and heeled boots, and that hair alone had people turning their heads as they passed. A familiar spark of contempt flashed in his green eyes as Terra shook his hand.

"Yeah, it's good to be here," Terra said. He turned to one of the others he'd met at the beach party, a petite black haired girl in a buttoned leather dress. "Hi, uh... Xion, was it? How have you been keeping?"

Her smile was sweet, but she didn't seem quite able to meet his eyes. "I'm happy to be back with friends, after... everything."

He couldn't remember this girl's story, other than her being a keyblade wielder with some connection to Sora. Lea put his hand on her shoulder at this, and gave Terra a look that suggested Xemnas likely had something to do with the girl's suffering. He decided to quickly move on.

"Were you with Aqua today? Do you know where she is?" He'd noticed her absence right away.

Xion brightened a little. "Oh, yes! We were at the art museum this morning, and then we had lunch in the park. Me, her and Olette. It was so lovely. While you're here, you should definitely go. There's a big lake with all different types of water birds, and a botanical house and a tropical ravine and..." This carried on for a bit.

Terra nodded along, making sure his smile was still hammered in place even as her words sent a new wave of anxiety crashing over him like a wave.

Oh dear. He'd never taken Aqua anywhere like the art museum or for a walk in the park. He'd never gone anywhere nice with her, not even as friends. Hell, he'd taken _Xemnas_ to the park, albeit in the same way a fed up dog owner would take their yappy little chihuahua out in the hopes of exhausting it into silence. But not Aqua.

He needed to remedy this, and fast. Since they came back from the war, the extent of the fun they'd had together was watching a couple of lame films in the house. Visiting a fucking grave. Arguing and tiptoeing around the obvious tension between them. That was just no good. He found himself thinking of what Xemnas said the previous night. A relationship could only take so much strain before it snapped, and Terra had done jack to lessen the burden of their hardships by forging any new, exciting memories of the two of them together.

Xion told him Aqua had gone to do some solo shopping and that she'd meet up with them for dinner. Their party drifted out of the station in twos and threes, Ventus talking amiably with Roxas and his little crowd, Terra rifling through his bag for the name and address of his hotel.

"We're meeting in Le Grand Bistro at half eight," Roxas said, when Terra realised he was heading in the opposite direction from their house. "Are you going to come up to ours before, or are you and Aqua...?"

Evidently, Ven had been blabbing. He saw Xion look round in interest.

"Oh," said Terra. His brain went into overdrive and crashed. "Well, yeah, I might-"

"Roxas, I _told_ you," Lea interrupted. "I've already got something planned for those of us who can actually, legally, go into a establishment and purchase an alcoholic beverage." He grinned at Terra. "He's just trying to ruin my plans because he's not invited."

"Whatever," said Roxas, scowling. "I mean, it's not like I had to fight for my life on a hundred different occasions and came through absolute hell, but yeah. Some arbitrary law says I'm too young to buy myself a beer and we better respect that."

"Law's the law, Dancing Queen."

"You know who you sound like? A certain one-eyed wrinkly creep we used to know."

Mostly to get rid of him, Terra agreed to meet Lea for one quick drink on the Tram Common after he checked in and left off his stuff. The room was modest - he hadn't spent much on it. One of the windows didn't close properly and noise drifted in from the street as he hung up his good shirt in the wardrobe. His reflection stared at him from the small, inlaid mirror. Terra frowned at his messy hair, the stubble coming through on his jaw. He was supposed to shave before he left, but he'd been too tired. His eyes drifted over his shoulder to the single bed.

Aqua was probably staying with one of the girls. Right. Definitely. His face began to warm. He grabbed his key card and hurried out of the room before he did something stupid, impulsive and presumptuous, like calling reception to request an upgrade to a double.

He'd hoped this one quick drink would be one very, very quick drink, but Lea seemed to have other plans. He led Terra past the bars and shop fronts into quiet winding streets of apartments and terraces, right up to the exterior wall of the Common. There was a fissure in its base, just wide enough for a man to turn sideways and shimmy through. 

“Where are we going?” Terra asked, when Lea didn’t offer any explanation for this strange detour. The redhead had already crouched down and wedged an arm and a leg through the gap.

“Alright, I was telling a fib when I said we were going for a drink,” he said, as his wild head ducked out of sight. “But I have something a lot more fun planned. Trust me.”

Terra looked up at the high, otherwise impassable wall. The air here was still and silent, indicating what was on the other side wasn’t part of the town centre.

“You’re not setting me up for an ambush, are you?” 

There was no response. Terra didn’t really think Lea would hurt him or anything like that, but he still dithered uneasily for a moment before following. It didn’t help that he was built so much broader than Lea and it took some contortion to wiggle his way through the narrow gap out onto the other side, where he was greeted by a ring of trees and soft grass underfoot. A copse at the edge of the woods, beyond which he spied the rusted iron-wrought gates of a dilapidated manor house. 

Lea was a vivid point of colour against all the soft browns and greens. He was lighting up a cigarette as he waited, a little flame flickering at the tip of one finger.

“Want one?” He offered the packet.

“What’s that house?” Terra pointed, as if either one of them could've missed it. It was enormous.

Lea glanced over his shoulder. “The Old Mansion? Beats me. It’s been abandoned for years, before DiZ or the Organisation ever starting using it. Hey, that’s not where we’re heading.”

Terra had taken several steps forward, trying to get a better look through the trees. There was something about the house that seemed to draw him in. “What did they use it for?”

“Whole load of dodgy shit,” said Lea. “They say Roxas was born here. No one really knows why, but it was enough for them to use it as a base of operations to fuck with his head after he left the Organisation.” 

It was weird to think of a person being born an adult. Terra’s mind conjured an image of a grown man rolling naked out of a slimy sack, dripping in blood and mucus. 

In reality, he knew the process wasn’t nearly so grotesque. Just a keyblade to the chest, the heart exorcised from the body and the shell picking itself up afterwards. Clothed and clean, just as they were before the act, but with some immutable part of their soul lost to the ether. And somehow that was worse – the idea that everything could be perfectly normal looking on the outside, but with something gone so terribly wrong on the inside.

“Bad memories,” said Lea quietly. His natural swagger seemed dampened by the shadow of that house. He took a deep drag on his cigarette and turned away, heading into the tree line. “Let’s go. I don't like this place.”

“Where _are_ we going?” Terra asked, as they ascended up into the woods.

"Somewhere no one will think to look for your body."

Terra looked at him. Lea laughed.

"Just kidding. Xemnas got what he deserved in the end, anyway. There's nothing I could do to you that would feel as good as what I felt when I heard how he died."

Terra tripped over a gnarled tree root. Where Lea was taking him apparently had no designated trail. "You know I'm _not_ Xemnas, right? Xehanort possessed my body. I didn't have a choice in any of... all that."

Lea dropped the stub of his cigarette and crushed it under the heel of his boot. "I know. I didn't really understand that at the start, though. For the rest of us Nobodies, it was so clean cut. Except for Roxas, obviously, but Roxas and Sora aren't nearly as similar as.... I saw your face and..." He was already lighting up a fresh cigarette. He handed it to Terra, and tapped another out of the packet. "I just assumed there was some part of him hiding away in there, the same way Axel just became a part of me. But Xemnas was all Xehanort, wasn't he? That's for you," he added, when Terra just held the cigarette awkwardly between his finger and thumb.

"Oh." Terra made a hapless attempt at a drag and coughed as smoke billowed out of his nostrils.

"Draw it into your lungs," said Lea. "He was, wasn't he?"

"What?" Terra croaked, massaging his chest.

"Xemnas. He was all Xehanort, right?" There was a short pause, and then, "Look, I'm sorry. I know you probably don't want to have this all dragged up, but I just can't stop thinking about it. With the Replica Program and the Radiant Garden lot getting back into their thing, I'm just paranoid I'll get the news some day that they've reincarnated him for whatever fucking reason. I know what they're like, their moral code is shaky as fuck. They'll do whatever they like, without even consulting-" He flicked his ash and nearly flicked the whole cigarette away. "There's no chance of that happening, right? He's gone, isn't he? Xehanort didn't leave a body, so there's no way of bringing him back... Right?"

"I don't know."

Lea stopped in his tracks. Terra was forced to stop too. The woods here were brighter and less dense than at the base of the hill, but the grey spindly trees had the eerie look of thin pale fingers poking up out of the earth.

"Xemnas was a monster," said Lea.

Terra swallowed. "I... yeah."

"He tried to take everything from me." Lea was very white all of a sudden. "Everything. He turned Isa against me and made him into a fucking machine. He erased all Xion's memories so she wouldn't have anything good in her life. And Roxas... he sent me to _eliminate_ him. Me. He knew we were best friends and he didn't care. He probably thought it was funny. I know he did, cause he threw it all in my fucking face that day in the graveyard. Messing with our heads. He kicked Xion into the dirt like she was some kind of worthless dog." He must have been bottling this up for a while, because it just kept coming. "A grown man, kicking a girl. A sixteen year old girl. Horrible _bastard_ -"

It was hard to know what to say. He didn't want to hear any of this, but did he have any right to refuse to listen? "That's awful and all, but..."

"I know," said Lea quickly. "Sorry. I just - no one will let me talk about this stuff. Isa is so weird about it, and Xion and Roxas... We're all trying to move on, but I don't know if I can until I know for certain he's dead. Dead and gone and never coming back."

Terra felt sick. The cigarette wasn't helping. He stubbed it out on a nearby tree. "I can't give you the closure you're looking for," he said eventually. "I'm sorry. I don't know even how to make sense of what happened to me. Every time I think it can't get any worse, some other little thing will happen and... I'm just a mess."

He'd meant to say "it's just a mess", but he didn't bother correcting himself.

"Yeah," Lea agreed. His green eyes swivelled off and stared into the distance. "The whole thing is so fucked, man."

"Can I ask... What did you mean when you said Xemnas got what he deserved?"

"Oh." Lea waved a hand. "Yeah, Riku says he might have grown a conscience in his very last minutes. Apparently he was gurning about how bad he felt. The perfect ending for him, really. There's nothing more pitiful than dying alone and full of regrets."

_________________________________________

Lea still wouldn’t tell Terra what the hell they were doing up in the middle of woods until the newcomer arrived. They’d reached a clearing Lea declared suitable and were sitting on a fallen tree trunk, making idle chatter, when a sudden roar came from behind them. Terra leapt to his feet in alarm.

A swirling vortex of darkness materialised amidst the trees, from which a figure emerged wearing a familiar black coat. But just as Terra forged the connection to summon his keyblade, Lea leapt forward with a wave and a loud greeting of, "What took you so long, you bum?"

Terra paused, now clutching the weapon tightly in the position to strike. Their new arrival was a young man with wide blue eyes and a very questionable haircut. He squawked with fear at the sight of Terra's keyblade and nearly tripped backwards over the hem of his coat. A little packet went sailing out of his hand onto the forest floor.

"Argh! My precious cargo!"

"Yes, Demyx! I knew you'd pull through for us!" Lea clapped him on the shoulder, hurrying after the trajectory of his lost goods. "Did anyone notice anything? How'd you get Even off your back?"

"Hey, Even's a good guy now," said the man. "You just have to ask him to make you a cup of tea and he'll run and do it. He still talks to me like I'm a complete moron, though. Like he didn't come crawling for my help to take down the big bad." He smiled hesitantly at Terra. "Hi. Sorry if I frightened you there. Definitely not my intention. I know the coat looks bad but I'm not like that, I swear!"

Terra vanished his keyblade. "You're... still a Nobody?"

"Has its perks. Makes it easier to get around, anyway." He took off his long coat and flung it down on the grass to sit on. It was amazing how the removal of that thick black leather instantaneously made him so look so much more human. Underneath, he wore cargo shorts, combat boots and a t-shirt with a tear in the neckline. He shook Terra's hand. "I'm Demyx, by the way. Former number IX. Former _former_ number IX. I was demoted because everyone thought I was too stupid and ugly."

Terra had no idea what he was talking about. "I'm Terra."

"Yeah," Demyx said. His eyes widened again. "You know, you look just like a young Xemnas. With brown hair."

"Thanks," said Terra, even though it probably wasn't a compliment.

"Woah, and blue eyes too! This is trippy. Hey, did he get all those weird insults from you? I kind of miss that, actually. Hey, Lea! Do you remember that time Xemnas called Marly a _fopdoodle_?" He laughed. "In that big man voice of his. It was so funny."

"Don't talk about Xemnas," Lea said, as if he wasn't the one who wouldn't shut up about him earlier. He was on his hands and knees, pawing about the undergrowth like a scrawny fox. "Damn, where the hell did it go...?"

"He once told me I was an example of why some animals eat their young," Demyx continued, in the same jovial tone. "He said other things too, but the words were too fancy for me to remember."

"Oh," said Terra. "That's, uh, nice."

"A-ha!" Lea retrieved the packet and waved it at them with a flourish. Terra stepped forward to take a closer look. It appeared to be a clear plastic bag, sealed at the top, with a bunch of wrinkly brown roots inside.

"What is that?" Terra asked.

"This," said Lea, waving the bag again for inflection, "is a damn good time waiting to happen."

He emptied up the contents on Demyx's coat and split it three-ways.

"What's the correct dosage again?" he asked, frowning.

"Uh," Demyx faltered. "Oh, I don't know. Ienzo and I only took like a couple each. I think. Or did we only take a couple to start off with? Crap, I can't remember."

"Wait a minute," said Terra, as the penny finally dropped. "Are those _drugs_?"

"It's three grams, I think," Lea said, ignoring his question. "That's a small to medium dose. Or so I've read."

"Three grams," Demyx repeated. "Okay, cool. Give me the scales." He held out a hand. "The scales. Come on."

Lea patted himself down. "Oh, shit. I must have dropped them."

"What? Really?"

" _No_ , not fucking really! Do I look like I carry around a set of kitchen scales on my person?"

"Hey," said Terra. "Hold on."

"Dude!" Demyx was aghast. "I had to steal these right under Even's nose and smuggle them out of the castle! I basically just trafficked _illegal goods_ between worlds, and you couldn't even bring the scales? Not cool!"

"Look, we can just eyeball it."

Terra had heard enough. "Right, well. Thanks for the invite, but I'm going now." He turned on his heel and headed for the treeline.

"Hey, wait! Wait, wait, wait!" Lea bounced in front of him, halting him in his tracks. "Come on, it'll be a laugh! I never get to do anything like this. I'm with the kids all the time-"

"And Isa won't do them with you," said Demyx slyly.

"You know what he's like. He hasn't changed, still such a stick in the mud-"

"I don't think it's a good idea," Terra interrupted. This had come entirely out of left field. It wasn't like Lea had bothered to gage his interest before dragging him up here. "You sound like you don't even know what you're doing."

He remembered his teacher wheeling out the television set in class one day and playing them old PSA tapes about the dangers of drug use. Little coloured pills that made young man so delusional he threw himself off the roof, thinking he would fly. The degeneration of a student from pretty and rosy-cheeked to haggard and toothless, shop-lifting and prostituting herself on the street for her next shot of heroin. Those adverts had terrified him, and by the time he was old enough to really do his own research, his mind was occupied by far more pressing matters.

The final destination was somewhat similar in any case, be it drugs or Xehanort. A loss of control, disorientation; the connection between mind and body, severed. 

Lea misread his concern. "These are natural," he said. "Just mushrooms, see? There's nothing dangerous in them. We can cut the dose if you're worried. Demyx, you said you and Ienzo only took a couple each?" He started splicing up the little piles, pushing half of each back into the bag. "Let's go for half of that, just to be safe."

"Why do I have to be a part of this?"

"You're supposed to do it in a group!" Lea insisted. "Right, Demyx?" Before Demyx could respond, he added, "Don't you want to try these things now you've got your life back?"

Taking magic mushrooms didn't exactly top his list of much-anticipated new experiences. "I just don't want it sprung on me like this."

"He's right," said Demyx. "You shouldn't pressure him, Lea."

Lea visibly deflated. There was a long awkward silence.

"Do you have someone else you could call?" Terra asked.

"Suppose we could ask Isa to come supervise us," said Lea. He checked his watch. "Although... he doesn't get out of work for another hour and a half, and by then it'll be too late. We've dinner reservations at half eight. I don't want to be tripping balls in the restaurant. It'll freak out the kids, for one thing."

"Uh, also, I don't know if I'd be too comfortable with Isa watching," said Demyx, his voice small. "He still scares me."

Lea looked so profoundly miserable, Terra's neck began to sweat. He really wished they hadn't dragged him into this.

"Okay," Lea mumbled, scooping up the rest of the mushrooms. "I suppose we can just put it off for another time-"

"Fine," Terra heard himself say.

Lea looked up hopefully. "Fine?"

"Yes, fine. Let's do it."

Lea's face split into a wide smile, but Demyx still looked hesitant. "You _sure_ it's fine?" he asked.

"Yes," Terra insisted, holding out his hand for his portion. "Absolutely fine."

Several minutes later, he wasn't fine at all.

"I feel like I'm going to puke," he groaned. Lea appeared to be a similar state. He was pacing back and forth, his hands pressed to his abdomen.

"That'll pass," said Demyx. "Try and hold it down though for as long as you can, or you might not trip."

Terra bent over double and vomited in a thicket of ferns.

"Oh, okay. I meant a little longer than that, but you might be alright." Nearby, Lea was retching too. "Jeez, you two are lightweights. Ienzo and I flew through this stage with no problems whatsoever."

"Well, bully for you and Ienzo." Lea wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Don't mention this to him, by the way."

For about half an hour, Terra felt nothing at all. He was starting to think he'd bypassed their effect when he threw them up with his half-digested sausage from earlier. What a waste of time, especially considering all the hassle to get here. At least now he could go back to his hotel and get some sleep.

But when he tried to get to his feet, his body was inexplicitly difficult to move. It felt heavy, like he'd been bolted down to the earth.

Bewildered, he turned his head. Lea and Demyx were sitting in silence, their eyes closed. Lea's head was tipped back, his mouth hanging open. His red hair danced in the wind like flames.

"Do you hear that?" said Demyx softly, and Terra realised it was the first time anyone had spoken for ages. "The woods are singing."

They... they _were_ singing. The leaves rustling infinitely, a chorus of whispering voices. Terra felt a smile pull at the corners of his lips. This was actually quite nice. One hand curled into the soil. The cold seeping into his fingers didn't bother him. It felt clean, somehow. Cleansing. When he looked down, the grass was growing up through his skin, green shoots piercing through the back of his hand. As he watched in wonder, they began to blossom into beautiful blue flowers.

He exhaled. _Aqua_.

Lea was saying something, but Terra ignored him. The flowers were too fascinating, pulsing along with the beat of his heart. What were they called again? Aqua told him once, up in the mountains. He'd tucked one behind her ear, smoothing her soft hair back off her neck.

"Devil's..." he murmured. "Devil's scab... scabby... scabies?"

Demyx dissolved into giggles. "What are you on about?"

It was right on the tip of his tongue. "The name!" he groaned. "Oh god, what was it? Devil's scabby... bits? No, that's not right..."

"Yeah, we don't want to hear about Xehanort's genitals, thanks," said Lea.

The name hit Terra like a slap. The leaves stopped singing.

"Oh look, someone's here," said Demyx.

Terra looked. A man was coming out of the treeline, heading up towards them. Strangely, Demyx then scrambled to his feet with a yelp, before Lea grabbed his wrist and yanked him back down onto the grass.

"Don't," he hissed. "You'll embarrass him. Just act normal."

"New people," Terra murmured, almost as an accusation. He was starting to tense up again. The fact the newcomer had long blue hair the same shade as Aqua's did little to make him feel better. It might have had something to do with the large X-shaped scar bisecting his cold, sharp features.

X for Xehanort.

"Isa's not _new_ ," Lea said. "He was at the beach that time! Remember?"

Vaguely. He'd only had eyes for one blue-haired person that day. Uncomfortable, he looked away, digging his fingers back into the soil to keep himself grounded.

"Hi Isa," Demyx chirped. "How was work?"

Isa didn't respond.

"Cool," said Demyx after a few awkward moments, his voice very small.

"Come on, Isa, lighten up."

Isa turned to Lea. "I just worked a ten hour shift," he said. "I have to work another tomorrow and the day after that. Meanwhile, you're sitting up here in the woods, getting high with someone you barely even know and _Demyx_ , and you call that a productive use of your time."

"Yeah, and I'm getting unemployment in like three days," said Lea, waving a hand. "Besides, you're the one who rushed into a job in the first place, I told you just to take it easy-"

"Do you think the rent pays itself? Food? Electricity? Your unemployment won't even cover half of what we need when you take into account Roxas and Xion's expenses."

Demyx sighed. "Well, you two haven't changed much."

"I know, right?" Lea scoffed. "Don't be such a buzzkill, Isa. Sit down and chill. So much for Saïx being dead and gone when here you are, channelling his damn spirit. I didn't invite you up here to rag on us-"

"Saïx?" Terra blurted. "You knew Saïx?" The three of them looked at him. To his horror, their eyes were gold. Terra quickly looked away, his heart pounding. "Of course you did," he muttered to his boots. "You're all Organisation..."

 _Calm down,_ he told himself. _It's okay. It's just the drugs. You're just high. It's drugs, it's not..._

"Should we tell him?" he heard Lea saying, something of a smirk in his voice. Great, now they were laughing at him. Everything that had been peaceful and relaxing about this experience was fast fading away. Even the sunlight seemed to be disappearing, vanishing behind the clouds. A familiar darkness crept in at the corners of his vision. He gave his head a shake to try to clear it but that just made himself dizzy, on top of everything.

"I already know about him and Xemnas," Terra snapped. "And yes, it is a bit weird for me, thank you very much." It was past time he was leaving. He got to his feet and made for the treeline.

"I'm going for a walk," he declared. "I'll see you later - at dinner-"

He'd barely made it three paces when he realised something was wrong. He felt too _light_. There was silence where he expected sound, a smooth glide where he expected snag. The branches didn’t snap under his feet, his trousers didn’t catch on the undergrowth. He stopped and looked down. The wind blew long ferny leaves through his ankles.

Then he looked behind him and saw his body, still sitting on the bank beside Demyx.

It rose to its feet, pressing hands to its chest, its stomach. It flexed its fingers. When their eyes met, he saw gold piercing through the blue, darkness brimming over its edges.

It smiled at him.

“Looks like Xemnas isn’t here to save your skin this time,” it said. It walked straight through him and vanished into the treeline, its boots crunching away through the leaves. It didn’t look back as Demyx called after it. 

Terra was left standing there, his mouth hanging open. What the hell just happened?

Then the realisation hit him with the force of a freight train, knocking all the air out of his lungs. He sucked in a breath and screamed. The others didn't so much as flinch. Isa was frowning slightly, his scar crinkled.

“Where is he going?”

Demyx looked just as confused. “What did he say? Something about Xemnas’s skincare?”

“Wait, hold on a minute.” Lea got to his feet too, pointing an accusatory finger. “What the hell did he mean, about you and Xemnas? I thought those were just rumours, Isa. Please tell me it isn't true. That's just... just fucking _gross_!”

Isa rounded on him. “Lea, what did you _think_ I was doing while you were off getting Zexion and Vexen killed? That promotion didn't just roll into my lap by chance.”

“Hey!” Terra yelled at them. “Hey, hey, hey, go after him! He just fucking stole my body! _Hello!_ ”

There was no response. They couldn’t hear him. He waved his arms. They didn't see him.

He was a ghost to them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! This chapter ended up super long and a bit indulgent, but I was having a really good time writing these characters (also more than mildly inspired by that scene in Midsommar)  
> If you enjoyed, kudos and comments are always appreciated!


	4. Chapter 4

It was too much to take in. This was all happening way too fast.

Desperate, Terra threw himself at Isa, hoping to grab hold of some kind of inner mechanism and slip into the driver’s seat for just enough time to raise the alarm, but he passed straight through him and landed on the ground at Lea’s feet.

None of the others seemed to have any idea what had just happened. Lea and Isa’s argument continued in increasingly loud voices while Demyx poked at the ground with a stick. Didn't they think of going after him to make sure he was okay? How could they not have noticed something had gone so horribly wrong? How the _hell_ was Xemnas's Organisation ever considered so dangerous when these three clueless idiots made the cut?

“Hey!” Terra yelled, waving his arms about wildly. "Hey, I'm right _here_!"

Nothing. This wasn’t working and the thief was getting away. Oh god, seriously, what the hell was he supposed to _do?_

There was nothing else for it. He turned on his heel and bolted into the woods after his stolen body.

Still not entirely cognisant of his return to the realm of the disembodied, he found himself ducking and dodging round the trees before realising he could pass straight through any obstacles in his path. Thusly, he caught up with the body in no time. It was moving slow, tense in all the wrong places. Or maybe there was no right way that muscle and sinew could look when manoeuvred around at another person's will.

“Stop!” Terra shouted.

To his surprise, it did. It glanced back over its shoulder and for a moment, they just stared at each other through the trees. It all felt so ridiculously western; Terra half imagined this was the point they’d draw pistols and start shooting each other.

It was wishful thinking. In this state, he couldn’t summon his keyblade. He couldn’t even manage a slap. He was completely powerless.

The body read his mind. “I suggest you stop labouring under the illusion you have any control here,” it said, in Ansem’s cold clear voice. "You will never learn your lesson. I tried to be lenient, but you took a step too far when you thought you could hold me to ransom. Now I've been left with no choice but to claim my recompense." A cold smile stretched across its face, so alien on his own features that Terra wanted to be sick.

“Your _recompense_?" he snarled. “You are not owed my body! It doesn't matter what I've done or how stupid you think I am, it's _mine_! Give it back to me - I need it!"

The words felt clumsy in his mouth, sounded clumsy as they passed his lips. How was he supposed to reason for something he never should have to argue for in the first place?

"What about what I need?" it said. "You should have listened to your little bedmate. If you had, we would have parted ways a long time ago, content never to cross paths ever again. You only have your own arrogance to blame."

 _Xemnas_. Terra tried in vain to locate him, but his presence wasn't within the reach of his consciousness. He hadn't checked in on him for ages, not since he left him there on the porch this morning. "What about Xemnas? he asked, trying to hold the body in place for as long as he could. "What are you going to do about him?"

The body laughed. "The fate of that conceited little nothing is not my concern."

Terra didn't know why he'd still imagined they were in it together, even after everything Xemnas said to him the night before. "Look," he started. "I'll go to Radiant Garden right now and get this sorted. I was just with someone who can use the Corridors of Darkness - and he knows the scientists! It'll take like ten seconds-" He really, really didn't like the way the body was smiling at him, "-come on, let me back in and I'll take us there _right now_ , I swear-"

"I'm afraid that window of opportunity has closed." It turned away, returning to its downwards trajectory through the forest. Terra made after it immediately. He wasn't going to let it out of his sight.

"Where are you going?" he demanded.

"Wherever I please." It made to swipe a branch out of its way and missed. Terra flinched, feeling the shadow of the sting across his face as blood streaked red and glistening down its cheek.

"Careful - hey, slow down!" The body was picking up pace, its feet crashing haphazardly through the undergrowth. It didn't raise a hand to the cut, didn't show any sign of registering it had been injured. His fear winding into a higher pitch, Terra floated in close. Something wasn't right here, aside from the flaming obvious. All of its movements were becoming very erratic. Uncoordinated steps, arms waving at things that weren't even there-

 _I'm still high_ , he realised with a start. _My body is, anyway._

In any other circumstance, he probably would have found this funny.

"Hey!" he shouted. "Stop, you can't go anywhere like this - you need to wait until the trip passes - HEY!"

A portal of darkness opened in front of them and the body vanished down it in the blink of an eye. There was no time to think. Terra flung himself in afterwards before it could close, before Ansem could leave him drifting aimlessly around the woods like a wisp of smoke.

_________________________________________

There was no floor beneath his feet. No walls, no ceiling; no discernible dimensions that made any sense for a human to physically pass through. There was just the darkness, folding over itself again and again. He felt like he was standing at the mouth of a black, oily whirlpool, poised to dive headfirst into corruption.

And people actually used this as a means of _transport_. It beggared belief to think of someone like Demyx wandering back and forth down this appalling corridor, in his silly combat boots, with his silly haircut.

That first time, after Xehanort cast him off into the void, Terra had stumbled to and fro in a state of disorientation and fear. Not knowing where he was placing his feet amidst the darkness, so desperate to find another sign of life he floundered around like a blind man. Screaming not just for Aqua, Ven and Master Eraqus, but at his lowest point for his mother, even his father…

Back then, he hadn't really understood at first. He’d thought he was hallucinating, or that he was just having a bad dream from which he’d soon wake. There was no real, discernible way another man could cast him out of his own flesh and blood, right? Not the body his mother grew inside her, brought into the world and raised with _her_ love. It wasn’t possible. No one could take that from him. It just couldn’t be.

This time, he knew better.

Terra steeled himself and bore on through. The corridor fell away and he poured out onto a dark sandy beach at night. The tide had already submerged most of the shore. Alerted by the sudden appearance of the corridor, a scatter of bats flitted out of the nearby palm trees and made for the caves. Their shrieks echoed and reverberated around the small cove.

The place was oddly familiar...

"Curious," came Ansem's voice. Terra looked round to see the body float out over the waves, its toes trailing along the surface of the black, murky water. It made for a very sinister sight. He followed, feeling as unsubstantial as the licks of sea spray he couldn't feel. "I didn't expect you to be able to follow, but while you're here, indulge me." It spread its arms. "What do you think?"

"Let me back in, Ansem."

"This is where it all began," the body continued, as if he hadn't spoke. "Xehanort was born on these islands. Nearly eighty years ago I came here, thinking I would free him from a life bound to these insular little shores. In the intervening years I have seen it all." Its eyes scoured over the small wooden pier, the ramshackle little huts crouched under the treeline. The air around it was vibrating with restless energy, pulsing through the pretty scene with nauseating shimmers of black and purple. "I have been everywhere. Little did I imagine all the worlds in between were just as small."

The pier exploded suddenly, raining wood and salt water from the heavens.

Terra yelled for it to stop, but it wasn't listening. A palm tree was wrenched out of the earth, and then another. They were thrown down into the ocean with an almighty crash, sending waves splashing up over the jetties.

Ansem was going to obliterate the whole island at this rate. Terra didn't have time to think rationally. He lunged at the body, and just as their forms overlapped, just as he remembered this wouldn't do any good, the whole scene changed and he was plunged into pitch black.

He scrambled upright, feeling something solid and cold beneath his feet. He wasn't at the beach any more.

"Maybe true living is beyond my reach," came a voice behind him. "Maybe I am more like my wretched counterpart than I thought. After all, once all the physical wonders of the world cease to amaze, there is only-" Terra turned and had a split second to dodge the blast of energy shot in his direction. He rolled and stumbled upright, cursing himself for not keeping up with his training since Xehanort's passing. He felt stiff and out of shape. Unlike Ansem, who was floating several yards away with his arms crossed over his chest, his own power relied on speed and dexterity. Another blast and he didn't manage to get entirely out of the way in time. He hit the ground with an almighty thud, felt the burn graze up the back of his calf.

"-people," Ansem finished. "Isn't that right?"

Terra was having deja-vu. Had he been to this place before? With Xehanort, maybe? He tore off the shreds of his trouser leg, cringing at the sight of his smoking, inflamed skin. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about, but enough is enough," he said, gritting his teeth through the pain. A flash of light and the familiar weight of his keyblade dropped into his waiting hand. "I'm not doing this with you any more. This ends now."

Ansem tilted his head, completely unfazed by the weapon pointed in his face. "I told the boy there was more to seek. To go forth and seek it."

"Am I supposed to know who you're talking about? Is everyone just 'boy' in your books or something? You know people have _names_ , don't you?"

"You were right when we spoke this morning."

This morning felt like years ago. "What was that?"

"You said love made it all worth it," said Ansem.

Terra's mouth fell open. "I - yes. Wait, you agree?"

"Not exactly." Ansem's feet dropped gently to the floor. Terra, however, didn't lower his keyblade. "As a species, humans have managed to convince themselves not only of the existence of love but of its all saving grace. If we need love to make life worth it, then life is not worth it. Not for those of us who are sensible enough to not fall for the delusion."

"Oh, for god's sake." 

"You and Riku, I envy you. I even envy Xemnas, a little. From what I've heard you two speak, he is willing to buy in to the collective insanity for the sake of his own selfish desires."

"No, _you're_ insane! You think literally every other person on the planet is pretending? And you're just the one fucking guy who knows better?" Terra rolled his eyes. "Get a grip. When have you even ever _tried_ to get anyone to like you?"

"Is that how it works?" His lip curled. "Is it a matter of effort expended yielding results? True, I have never tried. I have never cared to try."

"If you don't care then why are you even talking about it at all?"

Ansem's head tilted even further, long ropes of silver hair spilling over his shoulder. "Because I didn't die, Terra. I'm still here, and for what? What am I supposed to do, now that Xehanort is dead and all the purpose I had in my pre-arranged existence has died with him? The darkness is not like the nothingness. Where Xemnas can pull forms into existence from the in between, all I can do is destroy."

That Ansem had called him by his name and not 'boy' knocked him off guard, and his few moments of stunned delay seemed to cement Ansem in his convictions. Next thing, a horde of black orbs came bulleting towards him and he had to somersault back several paces to avoid being obliterated, somersaulting back out of whatever limbo they'd just found themselves in out onto the beach again.

"Are you serious?" he yelled, once he found his bearings. "Do you really think anyone has answers for you?"

The body was skittering back across the sea, leaving a trail of grey foam in its wake. It didn't seem interested in listening. Terra screamed after it anyway.

"Everyone's confused! _No one_ knows what the hell to do with themselves, but they make do anyway! By taking each day as it comes and just _surviving_!"

A new portal opened at a distance, too far away for him to physically follow. Terra grabbed hold of what he could remember of Ansem's presence in his heart and clung to it like a lifeline. When he saw it disappear down that vortex, the earth shifted suddenly and he was moving too, pulled down through the darkness until he burst out into an entirely new world - a dusty, barren plain, where a herd of striped horses reared and scattered.

The body was there, staring at him. Its pupils were pinpricks under the blazing sun. "It's not possible," it breathed.

"I told you," Terra snarled. "Enough is enough. Give me my body back, now!"

Just as soon as they'd arrived, they were transported away again, to the outskirts of a small village on the side of a mountain. A little girl dropped her doll and ran away through the snow, thankfully in time to avoid the barrage of attacks the body sent Terra's way. They passed straight through him and made quick work of a row of white-washed stone stables, disintegrating them to rubble. He heard animals screaming inside and lunged for his body once more, but they were already moving _again_ , and soon he was just seeing flashes of every new place the body dragged him through to try to shake his grip.

He saw windy dunes in a scorching desert... a dark forest with a low canopy and enormous, pulsating flowers.... an open azure ocean with one lone boat on the horizon... a street full of tall glass skyscrapers and voices erupting in screams... a cul-de-sac of small squat houses at night, where a fox knocked over a bin and scurried away under a hedge...

And Terra held on. He held on for dear life, like a stranded sailor to a buoy in the midst of a stormy sea. The visions flashed and flashed before his eyes until he saw nothing but white, and Aqua and Ven’s smiling faces, beckoning him home…

_________________________________________

Once, when he was a child, he'd fallen out of the oak tree at the front of his house and slammed onto his back on the concrete. He wasn't injured, but he'd lain there stunned for several minutes as the feeling slowly ebbed back into his fingers and toes. He felt like that now, except worse. Like he'd been squeezed into a very tight tube and then bashed repeatedly against a hard surface.

But he felt. He _felt._

Terra sat up, his vision spinning. “Where am I?” he wheezed. He appeared to be lying in the middle of a street. There were no streetlamps or cars or people, save for a presence he sensed lingering nearby. A certain someone he never thought he'd be so happy so see. "Where's Ansem? What happened? How-?"

“There’s no need to panic,” came Xemnas's deep, soothing voice. “He's gone."

“What do you mean gone?” Terra couldn’t believe it. His hands slid over his his arms, his legs. Little strips of white skin peeled loose; bleeding in places and aching in others where he would definitely bruise. It didn't matter. Delirious adrenaline coursed through his veins, bringing him to the verge of hysterical laughter. “Is he dead? Vanished? _Vanquished?_ ”

Xemnas's spiky-haired form finally came into focus out of the gloom. If Terra could've managed it, this is the point where he might have thrown his arms around him and kissed him.

"No, no." Xemnas waved a hand. “He has simply crawled off into some dark corner to lick his wounds. I'd expect his pride won't allow for him to show his face anytime soon, but do not expect him to stay away indefinitely."

Terra didn’t want to see that piece of shit ever again. "What the hell _happened_? How did you get rid of him?”

"I did no such thing."

"But..." That didn't make any sense. "But how? I didn't - we were just flying through all these different places and-"

"Your will," said Xemnas simply. When Terra just gaped at him, he sighed. "Believe me, I am just as surprised as you. Since Ansem's first attempt to take you over, I was under the impression you would make for exceptionally easy pickings. My imperative has been to keep as close to you as possible in the off chance he would try again and cast us both off to an eternity of drifting through the void. It seems you are more robust than I imagined."

"My will?" Terra echoed. He thought of his hollow set of armour clanking around the graveyard, and shivered slightly. "Are you sure it wasn't just the drugs?"

Xemnas smiled. "The lingering effects of the hallucinogens probably did not work in his favour, but do not underestimate your own fortitude. He was sending off such notes of distress I was pulled from my silent contemplation. I doubt he anticipated any assistance on my part, nevertheless, I happened to give him a little nudge to help him on his way out."

"Did you stave him off the first time?" When Xemnas bowed his head, Terra was suddenly annoyed. "Then why didn't you _tell_ me? I'd have known I could trust you way earlier than I did-"

Xemnas turned his back. "Come. It is time you were returned to Twilight Town."

"No, wait. Hold on." Terra scrambled to his feet. "I asked you a question."

"You would have ascribed it to some form of manipulation on my part," said Xemnas, not looking at him. "You are already thinking I will turn around and use this incident to curry favour further down the road."

"No," said Terra, slightly taken aback. "I trust you." When Xemnas just sighed again, Terra scowled. "Well, just cause I'm not entirely there yet doesn't mean I don't _want_ to be! I want to give you a chance, okay? It's just hard to know what to think when you're blowing hot and cold at me, like this morning-"

"I lashed out in anger and frustration. Dealing with the complexity of human emotion is not my forte. Otherwise, I thought I had always been perfectly reasonable with you, in spite of having my own freedom dangled above my head like a carrot on a stick."

There was a short pause.

"Am I wrong?" Xemnas asked.

No, he wasn't. In fact, he was making more effort than Terra or Ansem combined to try to make this situation workable. Terra felt an embarrassed flush crawl up the back of his neck. "Fine," he said begrudgingly. "You're... it's fine. I'm the one who should be apologising anyway. You're right, I haven't been proactive enough with literally anything in my life. I keep lying to Aqua and Ven, and I've been holding you two to ransom-"

"Those are Ansem's words."

"How did you know?"

"We spoke about the matter at length this morning."

"Oh..." Terra fidgeted. "Is that why you were so pissed off?"

Xemnas's eyes slid away. "Ansem can get under my skin in a manner only he can," he said. "It is the nature of our being. We were one body and soul, but now there is a chasm in all the places we were once bonded. A Nobody can't help but feel the ache of that emptiness inside them, and as Ansem was my heart, he knows exactly where to twist the knife in order to make the wounds bleed afresh."

A snort. "You know, if he was going to just cast us off or whatever, then maybe we should just jump ahead and, you know... get rid of him permanently before he has the chance to do it again. If we can. There probably is a way. I could ask the ones at Radiant Garden-"

He received a very sharp look for that and his voice trailed off.

"As we discussed before," Xemnas said. "If you do not believe the right to an existence should be contingent on one's past, then that is that. Ansem is entitled to the same rights as everyone else."

"But he's _presently_ a dick," said Terra. "There's a difference."

Xemnas laughed. "Yes. That he is."

Terra found himself smiling too. "Right," he said, brushing down his dirty clothes. It was freezing. He wished he had a jacket. "Where the hell are we?"

It looked like a typical city street, but in the aftermath of bomb going off. There was debris lying everywhere; broken glass and huge slabs of concrete. Cracks where the tarmac had literally split open like dry dirt. Terra stepped over the remnants of what looked like a smashed advertising screen and peered around the nearest junction. None of the streets had any names.

"Are we in some kind of simulat - _argh!_ "

A spectral white shape slithered right under his foot. The shape was followed by several more, wriggling out of side alleys and materialising out of nowhere. Terra tripped backwards over the screen and only just summoned his keyblade on time to block one of the creatures from making a swipe for him.

"Ah, my Dusks," said Xemnas pleasantly. "I did wonder where they had all run off to."

"Why are they attacking me?" Terra demanded, smacking off three in one stroke, only for six more to materialise in their place. Hadn't he had more than enough fucking excitement for one day? "Hey, make them stop!"

"How? I have no mouth from which to bark orders at them."

"Well that's funny, cause you manage to make plenty of noise all the same!" Terra snarled. He had a notion Xemnas was enjoying himself, and it was confirmed when the other started to laugh again. "Asshole."

"You will have to let me in," said Xemnas, hiding his grin behind a gloved hand. "Only then will I be able to call them off and open a corridor back to Twilight Town."

Terra's legs nearly gave way at the thought. Swap himself out? Voluntarily? Xemnas couldn't expect him to agree to that. No one could - it was insane.

This had to be a test - Xemnas seeing if Terra would actually put his money where his mouth is, or if he really was just as dishonest with his little passengers as he was with everyone else in his life. After all, how could Terra stand there and blather on about trust and then turn Xemnas down the second he asked him to take a leap of faith?

"Is there not a train station or something around here?" he asked desperately, trying to look around in the midst of the squiggling white figures and all the damn crap lying everywhere. It didn't seem likely. What had happened here to make it look so _devastated_?

"No," said Xemnas. "Only those who know where it is can make their way in and out of this world. That is how I designed it." He was wandering around the junction at his leisure, looking down the empty streets, completely unconcerned about Terra's predicament with his ghastly foot soldiers. "I lived here with my Organisation for ten years."

"Wait, what? You _made_ this place? Did you then trash it in a tantrum when you had to reform into Xehanort's Organisation or something?"

"No," said Xemnas again. "I ended up using the city itself as a defense when Sora attacked. Most of these buildings became makeshift projectiles."

Terra forgot himself for a moment and stared at him. "You... threw buildings...? … At Sora? That's just... what the fu-" At that moment, a Dusk managed to wriggle through his lax defense and crack him with a rather spectacular headbutt. He reeled back, swearing. "Oh, fine!" he bit out. "Fine, fine. Look, just get us out of here."

A gloved hand extended towards him and Terra reached for it. There was a cool rush over his skin, like he was bobbing over the crest of a wave, and then he'd done it. Again. He was on the outside. _Again._ The Dusks stilled immediately and fell back, settling into a line of sinister white sentries. To his grace, Xemnas opened the corridor in an instant. Terra floated in close as the he took one last look over his shoulder before stepping into the vortex. The Dusks watched forlornly as the portal closed, leaving them there in the pile of rubble that was left of their world.

"Maybe you can go back?" Terra offered, his eyes squeezed shut against the darkness. "You know, when you get your own body and all..."

"I might do." They stepped out in the midst of the trees, a crumbling exterior wall and the rear façade of the Old Mansion nearby. Terra glanced up at the sky, but with the perpetual sunset, it was hard to know what time it was. With a start, he realised he'd almost certainly missed dinner reservations.

Xemnas read his mind. "Your friends will be wondering where you are. You should not delay." He held out his hand again for the switch.

After, when Terra's feet were planted firmly on the grass and he was back breathing the fresh forest air into his lungs, he stared down at his hand, still outstretched in front of him. As he did when Ven gave him the plate of burnt sausages, he felt weird inside. Like he wanted to run away and cry and be held all at the same time.

"It was to show you came in peace."

He looked up. "Huh?"

"A handshake," said Xemnas. "To offer your hand was to show you had no weapon, that you meant no harm. That is where it originated from."

Their fingers brushed, translucent black passing through solid flesh. Terra wiggled his, watching them overlap, yet feeling no trace of Xemnas's touch on his dirty, bloodstained skin. He didn't know whether to feel comforted by that or not.

_________________________________________

Just as he was wondering how the hell he was going to conspicuously make his way back to his hotel in such a ragged state, he heard footsteps and Isa came striding out of the treeline towards him. He looked very annoyed.

"Terra. There you are. We've been searching for you for hours." He stopped in his tracks, his eyes widening. "What happened to you?"

"Ah," said Xemnas quietly. "Saïx."

"Saïx?" Terra looked between them. " _You're_ Saïx?"

Isa's face crinkled into a frown. "It's Isa now. Hold on, I have to call the others to let them know you're okay."

Terra groaned, smoothing a hand over his tangled hair. " _Isa_ , of course." He'd forgotten about the whole X anagram name equation thing. "I'm an idiot."

"Lea," said Isa, his phone pressed to his ear. "I've just found him..."

"And Axel too." Xemnas made a noise like a disgruntled cat. "How disappointing."

"Don't start," said Terra, without thinking. Isa glanced at him.

"He's alright, just a little beat up and confused. It's understandable considering... No, I'm perfectly capable of handling it myself. I'll bring him back to ours. Tell Aqua to meet us there."

_Aqua!_

Terra nearly had a heart attack and died right there and then. Of course she'd be out looking for him. And here he was - blood splattered in his torn clothes, and he'd been missing for hours, _and_ he'd taken drugs.

"No, wait," he blurted. "She can't see me like this."

"It is about time you came clean to her," said Xemnas, unsympathetically. "You cannot hide your actions from her this time. There are too many people involved - too many potential avenues for word to get back to her. As I said before, is that something you believe your relationship can withstand?"

It wasn't. But he wasn't ready for this confrontation either.

Isa came to his rescue. "Come with me. They headed outside the town to look for you, it should be about half an hour before they return. You can wash your face and get a change of clothes in mine."

"Thank you," said Terra, relieved. Even if he couldn't prevent the full fallout, he could at least cushion the blow somewhat.

His stomach was still in knots though, by the time they took every side alley and tunnel across town to Isa's house. Isa led him into the living room and told him to sit at the table. Somebody had been doing some homework there recently – there was a pencil case, a calculator, some books on algebra and an open exercise book with some attempts at equations. Isa pushed them aside, knocking the pencil case over the edge of the table. It hit the floor with a clatter and its contents rolled everywhere.

Terra shrank down in his chair and sipped the hi-potion provided for him, trying to make himself as small and unobtrusive as possible.

He felt like a dick. Realistically, he couldn't have done anything about the episode with Ansem, except for maybe exorcising him from his body ahead of time as the man had said - but nobody else knew that. They didn't know what had happened. They would all be thinking he just couldn't handle a couple of mushrooms and now he'd caused such a big hassle for everyone. If it had just been Lea and Demyx it wouldn't be nearly as embarrassing, but Isa was so serious, older even than his years, and he was apparently already having a bad enough day as it was without having to clean Terra up on top of that.

At least Xemnas was getting something out of this. He hadn't taken his eyes off Isa the whole journey back, though now he finally looked away to inspect the house his ex-lover was now living in - with another man, no less. He drifted towards a glass front cabinet in the corner. When Isa left the room to get a First-Aid kit, Terra got to his feet and went over to see what he was looking at.

There was one of these in their own house, bequeathed by Aqua's aunt. An ancient thing crammed with dusty figurines of ladies holding parasols, delicate little glass swans and other useless knick-knacks. He vaguely remembered the one in his childhood home, though it had served little more than a gallery of framed family photos. His mother and her friends in happier times, his maternal grandparents, himself at the various stages of his early life. If there had once been photos of his parents wedding, or indeed anything of his father, they'd been swiftly removed before he could consolidate them to memory.

In this, there was barely anything. A bottle of whiskey, a photograph of the kids on the beach. A certificate of excellence from Xion's high school and a tacky looking trophy with a bunch of coloured glass balls which caught the light, reflecting little rainbows around the interior of the cabinet.

"Want me to sneak that out under my shirt?" When Xemnas just blinked at him, he pointed. "The trophy. Who wouldn't want that in their house? In fact, I think it would look great up on the mantelpiece once you build yourself a nice new castle in your Neverland."

"Neverland?"

"Whatever it's called. That little world of yours you ended up trashing."

"The World That Never Was," Xemnas corrected, giving him a withering look. " _Neverland_ was a place for little boys who never grew up. A place most befitting for you."

"Hilarious." When Terra turned away, Isa was standing a few feet behind him, staring. Terra took a startled step back and bumped into the cabinet, knocking over the photo frame. He hadn't heard him come back into the room.

"Who are you talking to?"

"Uh, myself," he lied. "I picked up some weird habits when I was... you know..."

Isa's eyes slid over his shoulder. "Do you recognise it?"

"The trophy?"

"No," said Isa. "The whiskey."

Terra looked back at it. A tall, square bottle with a gold label. He didn't know anything about alcohol but it looked fancy. "Should I?"

"It was Xemnas's favourite."

"Oh," said Terra. "Right." He glanced at Xemnas. Isa tracked the movement of his eyes. His scar crinkled again.

"Indeed it is, I kept a bottle in my office." Xemnas smiled slightly. "It's a fifty year old single malt, very expensive. I bought him a bottle as a present a few years ago, though I doubt this is that same one-"

Isa started talking over the top of him. Terra's attention was torn, his eyes darting between them in panic. By the time he worked out Isa had asked him to sit down so he could dress his leg, Xemnas was still fucking going.

"-would have been lost when the castle fell, which is a shame as there were only half a dozen bottles produced that year," he finished. This was disorientating. Terra made a discreet motion for him to keep quiet as he followed Isa over to the table. He stepped on a couple of pencils by accident and heard them snap under his foot. They were still lying all over the floor.

"I'm sorry, by the way," he started.

Isa motioned for him to prop his leg up on one of the other chairs. "If the children don't want their things broken, they should learn to tidy them away once they're done with them."

"No, I mean about earlier. When I said about you and Xemnas in front of Lea. I would never have said anything if I thought he didn't know, or if I even knew you'd once been Saïx. I feel like I made things awkward for you or something."

Isa didn't look up as he dabbed antiseptic over the shining red skin. It stung, badly, and it was all Terra could do not to snatch his leg back.

"It doesn't matter," said Isa. "That revelation was long overdue. I don't know why I was holding on to it like some kind of dirty secret. I feel better for it being out there."

"Are you and Lea together?"

"How did you get this wound?" Isa asked, ignoring the question. "Were you running around the woods that whole time?"

"Uh, I don't remember. It's all a bit of a blur - I think I was hallucinating."

Isa looked up at him. "It smells like darkness."

Terra said nothing. Somewhere in the recesses of the house, he could hear a clock clanging in the new hour. After a long pause, Isa sighed.

"We all have secrets," he said, finishing off the bindings and fishing a packet of wipes out of his First-Aid kit. "I have no real interest in your affairs."

"Why are you helping me then?"

"I'm trying to fit in."

The candidness of that response hit like a slap. Terra stared at him, amazed.

"It's different for you," Isa continued. "You can't be blamed for what happened to you, not truly. People think of you as a victim first and foremost. If anything else, they might think you were foolish and naïve. I, however..." He smiled coldly. "My past transgressions mean I have to prove I'm capable of being redeemed."

"But you betrayed him - them, I mean." Terra went slightly pink. Again, he really wished Xemnas wasn't listening in. "You were working undercover for the side of the Light. Weren't you?"

"Yes."

"For... Lea?"

"Yes. Lea is arrogant and lazy and irresponsible, but... over the years I wasn't able to cut him out of my heart entirely. He remains my oldest and dearest friend. No matter what Xemnas told me, or what he tried to convince me of my true nature, he never truly cared for me. Isa was the only part of me that was ever loved by anyone. Wash your face."

"What? Oh." He took a wipe out of the packet and wiped away the crusted dirt and blood on his cheek. "That seems like redemption enough in itself."

"Unfortunately not. Since coming back, I don't feel like Isa." He shrugged a shoulder. "I don't even feel like Saïx. I can't commit to either and that is where I am. None of this comes naturally to me, but I just have to make do."

With that, Isa turned away and began gathering up the empty potion bottles and supplies.

Rather than enjoying recompletion and the freedom to pursue the life of his choosing, it was like he was embarking on a life with the good years already behind him. Terra scrambled for something to say to make him feel better, or maybe encourage a more positive outlook. “For what it’s worth, I think Xemnas really did care-”

“Don’t,” said Xemnas, breaking his silence. “There is nothing can be said. To try to plaster over the reality of those years with empty platitudes of what could have been would be to undermine Saïx’s understanding of his own lived experience. He is trying to move on. Let him do that.”

"But-"

"You have company," Xemnas reminded. Isa was looking more than fed up with his stuttering and stammering. He got to his feet.

"I will get you some clothes. Most of my things will be a tight fit on you but it's either that or you try to squeeze into something of Lea's or the kids."

A few minutes later, Terra was pulling an unbuttoned shirt over a straining t-shirt and sweatpants rolled up at the hems. "Thanks for all your help," he said to Isa. "I really appreciate it, even if you think you're just doing it for selfish reasons. We're all selfish from time to time, by the way," he added. "It's how we survive, isn't it? Don't be too hard on yourself."

Hadn't he said something similar to Ansem, if a little less gently? How could he give the same advice twice in the same day, to two separate people, and yet never apply it to himself? This is where Xemnas would turn up his nose and call it the height of hypocrisy.

"Hm." Isa picked his dirty clothes up off the floor and went to put them in the wash.

"Don't be doing anything else for me - you've already done enough!" Terra called after him. There was no response. He looked to Xemnas in exasperation, shaking his head. "I can see why you two were together."

Suddenly there was the turn of a key in the lock and the front door opened. Terra's heart stopped.

Lea came in first, his wild red hair filling up the doorframe. Then there was a flash of blue and Aqua was there. She was _right there_ , throwing her arms around him. He braced himself to catch her weight; his arms tightening at her waist.

God, was she always this _small?_ Aqua, the Keyblade Master? That fierce, resilient girl from his adolescence? His heart began to beat again, pounding anew, beating so hard against his ribs she was certain to feel it through the layers of their clothes.

"You're okay." She pulled back slightly to look at his face. He was dumbfounded by the sight of her, the feel of her, her smell, everything. "Oh my god, Terra. When I got the call, I... I was worried something had gone really badly wrong."

He knew in that split second he couldn't do it. He couldn't tell her one more lie.

"It did," he admitted. "But it's... it's okay now."

Her eyes searched his. "Tell me about it?"

To think he'd made her insecure about this, that she thought he might close up and turn away from her like she couldn't be trusted.

He nodded. "I'll tell you everything," he said, and felt her relax.

Lea chose that moment to creep past them in an absurdly theatrical fashion. "Good to see you're okay, man," he whispered, patting Terra on the shoulder.

Isa had been watching from the doorway to the kitchen. He stepped away without a word and followed Lea out of sight. At the same time, Xemnas turned and vanished through the opposite wall.

He and Aqua were left alone in the room.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> About halfway through this story now. Thanks for all the support so far, I really appreciate it!

Aqua’s hands were curled around her mug of tea, her fingers idly drumming a beat against the ceramic.

Compared to his own slovenly appearance, she was immaculate. When she was sitting across from him like this, it made him feel like some criminal dragged up in front of a judge. He really wanted to move his chair around the table beside hers, but he was conscious of how desperately he needed a shower and he’d already intruded too much on their host’s generosity to ask for one. So, he just stayed where he was, sweating beneath his borrowed clothes.

He hadn't taken a single sip of his own tea since Isa brought it in for him, unable to do much more than stare down at his white knuckles and long for the feel of his nails between his teeth, filthy as they were. The relief of chewing them down to the quick. In his head, he could hear the ghost of his mother's voice, feel the sting of her wooden spoon rapping against his fingers. _Terra, don’t you even think of biting those nails_...

Master Eraqus had taken up the cause after Terra left home. Far less flippantly, he might add, as if breaking the habit was some trial of his tuition as a Keyblade Master. Terra had kept a little tub of bitter tasting gel in his wash bag which he'd applied every now and again to try to force himself to outgrow the compulsion. It hadn't worked. His nails were still perpetually gnawed down to stumps, only then his mouth just tasted like shit too. He had no idea it was just the first step on his journey of many failures.

It was even kind of funny thinking back on it. In the end, he'd went and lost the physical ability to put his fingers anywhere near his mouth altogether, and the nail-biting had dropped out of his psyche for lack of other options rather than through any testament of self-control.

And to think, it was _strength of will_ that had saved his neck, on multiple occasions. Hilarious.

"So,” Aqua began for maybe the fourth time, and he quickly looked up. She tilted her head in expectation, waiting for him to talk.

“Yeah,” he said. And just like all the previous attempts, the conversation dropped off immediately. The silence ticked on. The bells on the clock clanged in the quarter hour, half past the hour, three quarters past, all the way up the new hour – whatever the hell time it was. The persistent glow of the sunset was so disorientating. He felt like he was in some surreal dream.

Occasionally, he heard raised voices in the next room. He'd really dropped Isa in the shit. Lea's hatred for Xemnas was certainly far _louder_ than any other grudge carried on off the battlefield, more so, even, than Terra's for Xehanort. Before Isa brought the tea in for them, there'd even been what sounded like a plate smashing. Isa’s cool demeanour gave nothing away as he set down the tray and left as promptly as he arrived, but Terra’s lips formed an apology even if he didn’t quite manage to vocalise it.

His tongue was tied in knots. Double knots. Triple knots –

“Terra,” Aqua prompted him gently.

“Yeah,” he said again. “Sorry, I... don’t really know where to start.”

Aqua shifted in her seat, crossing her legs under the table. Terra felt her socked foot brush against his knee and somehow managed to shiver at the contact, even though they'd just been hugging _fairly_ intimately. He could still feel the press of small hands at the low of his back, her breasts up against his chest, as if all the places they'd shared body heat had been branded to his skin with a hot iron.

"Why don't you just start at the beginning?" she asked. "Lea told me you guys had a few drinks up in the woods?"

It was so tempting to take the out that had been left there for him, but he squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to confess. "No, not really. He brought mushrooms and... well, yeah. We took them."

"Oh." Aqua's eyebrows went up. "Okay."

"I didn't want to," he said. When her eyebrows arched even higher, he added, "I know it doesn't mean much to say that now. I just..."

He just had an overwhelming aversion to disappointing people, even when it was someone he barely knew. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. That sounded so childish.

"I don't think you've done something _bad_ , Terra," said Aqua. "I just want to know what you're thinking. A lot of the times when we talk to each other I just get the impression the things you're saying to me aren't genuine, like you're afraid to be open about how you're really coping." She smiled weakly. “If... doing that sort of stuff with the guys is something that makes you feel better, then that’s _fine_. You’re owed that much after everything you’ve been through.”

Having expected to be scolded like a naughty child, Terra was taken aback.

“You just need to be safe about it, okay?”

Maybe this was going to go a lot smoother than he anticipated.

“That’s the only thing that I’m concerned about,” she continued. “You need to look after yourself. I mean, what even happened today? Did you black out or something? Lea said you just ran off and they couldn’t find you for hours, even when they were shouting all over the forest for you. As if that didn't sound a little too painfully familiar." She made a face. "I don’t want to order you about but… I'm going to ask you to please not do that any more, Terra. It’s not good for you, for me or Ven, for our friendship–”

“I’m not going to,” he said quickly. “And I want to apologise for the way I was getting on - you were right. It was just… too hard to explain what had happened and I closed up and acted like an asshole. I'm sorry.”

Some of the tension fell out of her shoulders, and he realised she'd been holding their argument a little closer to heart than he had. He supposed if he didn't have all that other nonsense to contend with, he'd be pouring over it obsessively himself.

"That's okay," she said, taking a sip of her tea. It didn't seem to bother her that it wasn't warm any more. "So, what did happen? What's been going on?"

He laughed a little, breathlessly. Where to _start_? His own head could barely make sense of it. His eyes fell on the exercise books; the reminder of the children who lived in this house, tucked upstairs in bed in the first real home they'd ever had.

“You know about Roxas, right?” he asked.

She smiled. “It’s a little hard for him to slip under my radar when he could pass for Ven’s twin.”

“But… but you know what he _is_ , don’t you? You know about the whole Heartless and Nobody thing?" When she nodded, if a little uncertainly, he continued. "Well, Xehanort, he... he did that too. Made a Heartless and a Nobody out of himself."

"I am aware of that, yes."

"Okay." He sucked in a deep breath. "But... he didn't do it in his own body. He did in _my_ body."

Her smile flickered. "I'm aware of that too." She went to take another sip of tea and slopped it down her chin onto the front of her sweater. "It's sick, what he did," she said as she dabbed at the stain with her sleeve, unembarrassed. "Sending those things out to do his bidding, when they looked just like..." She shivered. "What has this got to do with now, though? They were vanquished, Riku told me."

Terra's insides tangled into a ball, clenched tight with nerves. "Because when they died, they went back to _me_. Back... here."

Aqua raised her eyes from where his fingers were resting, in the centre of his chest, up to his face.

"Terra, they didn't," she said, her voice soft and consoling. "They weren't anything to do with you. Your body was just the vessel. You're _good_ , okay? All the rest of it was part of Xehanort, part of his evil."

"I thought that too," said Terra. He slumped back in his seat and sighed. "It makes me realise how little I understood about the consequences the possession had for... more than me, I guess." He thought of Xemnas hoping he'd one day have the family he was robbed by the circumstances of his conception. Ansem and his cold despondency towards any future where he wasn't going to be offed in some nefarious quest to leave scorched earth in place of civilisation. "It's only now I'm starting to get to know them a bit better that I know they aren't really like him," he continued. "Well, one of them anyway. The other's just as much of a fuck-"

"Wait, what?" Aqua frowned at him. "Getting to know... what are you talking about?"

He was jumping ahead of himself.

"Well, that's how I know they definitely came back to me," he explained. "Maybe it's because of the whole possession thing but they weren't... totally reabsorbed? They kind of float about me, like in my aura. I think they're bound to me in these projected forms. I can see them, I can talk to them, they can talk back..."

And it was out there. He waited in trepidation of her shock, her anger, maybe even a little betrayal. But, short of reacting badly to his news, she didn't react at all. She just stared at him blankly and there was silence, stretching on and on.

And on and on...

And on and on...

Terra coughed into his fist. "I mean, they can't _do_ anything. Well, they can if they possess my body - but I think I've worked out how to stop them from doing that-"

Aqua shoved back her chair and shot to her feet.

Startled, Terra jumped up too. He feared she was going to make a break for the door, but she simply beelined towards the glass cabinet and retrieved Isa’s fancy whiskey from inside.

“What are you doing?” Terra asked, as she unscrewed the lid.

“I need a drink.”

“Okay...” He watched with detached horror and amazement as she took a swig straight from the bottle. “Um, Aqua, I think that has some sentimental–”

“Terra.” The bottle was set onto the table with a loud _clunk_. "How can you drop something like that on me and then just sit there with that face on your face as if it's nothing?"

Stupidly, "What face on my face?"

"How long has this being going on?" she demanded. "Why haven't you said anything until now?"

"About a month or so?" She reeled back as if he'd pushed her, and he scrambled to explain. "I wasn't sure what was going on at first. It's taken a while to even reach common ground with just one of them. I didn't even know their names before any of this-"

"One of those men attacked me in the Realm of Darkness, you know."

That shocked him right through to his core. His mouth fell open in a soundless gasp. No. He didn't know. This was the first he was hearing anything about it.

There was a pause as he struggled to process this unpleasant revelation, disturbed only by Lea dropping a muffled c-bomb in the other room. That couldn't be right, could it? Neither Ansem nor Xemnas had ever mentioned or even hinted they'd met Aqua before this. Putting aside Ansem for the moment, the very chance it might have been Xemnas was unexpectedly devastating. It would ruin everything, all their progress-

She bulldozed over his thoughts with no mercy.

"Are you really telling me he's not only back from the dead, but he's been in my house this whole time? Wandering around, listening in on our conversations? Watching us? Even _taking over your body_ and you didn't even tell me?" She looked faint. "How could you keep me in the dark about this?"

"Wait, hold on," said Terra, rubbing the blur out of his vision. God, he was exhausted. " _Who_ attacked you? When was this? What the hell happened?"

He'd only heard about her time in the Realm in bits and pieces; mentions that were never really elaborated or followed up on. All he knew for certain was that somewhere out on there on those dark shores, she'd succumbed to the ultimate corruption. It made him sick to even think about it, so he'd never asked her for the details and she'd never told him. He'd just come to his tidy little conclusions on his own, blaming Xehanort for all and sundry as per usual.

Everyone always told him he was an idiot but now he really felt like one. After all, what was the point of Xehanort having lieutenants if not to carry out his dirty work for him?

"Describe him," said Terra suddenly, when her voice trailed off. She didn't give a name, so presumably her attacker didn't either. "What did he look like?"

"What do you mean, what did he look like? I'm not mistaken - it was definitely one of those two!"

"Yes, yes, but I need to know _which_ one. Was his hair straight? Was it choppy? Did he have bangs, or was it all hanging down in the back?" Aqua was looking at him like he was crazy, but she didn't understand why this was important. "What sort of fighting style did he use? Did he attack from afar, at close-range, or...?"

"Wait a minute..." The little colour drained suddenly from her face. "Is he here, right now?" She glanced behind her, as if expecting to find a gold eyed, sneering face looming over her shoulder.

"No, they're not here right now." He persisted. "Please, Aqua. Answer me."

Scowling, she took another swig of Isa's whiskey. "He hit me with some dark energy blast or something. I didn't have my keyblade to block it, it knocked me flying."

Oh, thank god. His injured leg throbbed in solidarity, though he barely noticed it through the sudden surge of relief coursing through him. He even laughed a little, immediately regretting it when he saw her hurt expression.

"Is this funny to you?"

"No," he said quickly. Of course it had been Ansem. He would have to ask Xemnas how much he knew about this later, but for now, it wouldn't do this situation any favours to start casting doubts on his character too. He decidedly didn't look at the broken pencils or the school books on the table, the memory of Lea's angry words and all Xemnas's past crimes. "Look, I'll just come out and say it. One of them... isn't all that bad? To me, anyway. Today, for instance, he actually helped me get back to Twilight Town when the other one stole my body."

Aqua folded her arms across her chest and said nothing.

"Not the one who attacked you," Terra added, before she could get the wrong end of the stick. "The other one. The one who stole my body those two times is the one who attacked you, but I'm talking about the other one - the first one - he helped me get it back from him." He couldn't explain this more pathetically if he tried. He tugged on the ends of his hair and groaned. "Fuck! Ansem and Xemnas. That's their names, okay? Ansem is bad news, but Xemnas is... well, I... kind of like him."

Again, there was no response. Terra kept talking so they wouldn't fall back into awkward silence.

"He's weird and I know he did bad things, but I think he has a chance of being a normal person. If the rest of the Organisation and that old king guy got a shot at it, I don't see why he shouldn't-"

"And the man who attacked me?"

Crap. Terra shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I mean... In the same line of thinking, it doesn't really seem right to single out _just him_ as someone who doesn't deserve to come back. Surely you have to see that-"

"Lea!" Aqua shouted suddenly, making Terra jump. "Lea! Could you come in here for a second?"

"Wait, what are you doing?"

Shaking her head, "Terra, I'm sorry, but you are such an idiot. They're _manipulating_ you, both of them! There's no way this isn't all some scheme they've concocted amongst themselves to play with your head. They've managed to weasel their way into your trust when you should be getting _rid_ of them! After what happened to Master Eraqus, I don't know how you could let yourself be fooled again by the same underhanded, conniving-"

"Hey!" The mention of that name stung worse than anything else. "I'm... trying to see the good in people. That's how _you_ pulled me back from the darkness! If you had just written me off for my crimes, I wouldn't be here right now!"

She ignored that. "Lea knows the scientists - he can get this sorted for you in a heartbeat. I can't believe you let this go on for so long." She was over at the doorway, calling down the hall. "Lea!"

"No, Aqua-" His hand closed around her wrist, pulling her back into the room. "I've already made my decision. Even if that were an option, it's not happening."

"It's not your decision to make, Terra."

His blood roared in his ears. "Yes, it is!" he yelled. "It's _my_ body, Aqua! Anything that happens to them is coming through me - I'm _done_ having people think my say isn't important!"

In his mind's eye, he saw the darkness burst free. Saw himself losing control, saw her flying backwards and crumpling on the floor like a broken toy, her body bruised and bleeding. But when he blinked, they were right as they were, facing each other in Isa's living room. She looked wary, but not frightened. He remembered that wasn't his fight any more, if it had ever truly been in the first place. At least in the way he used to think of it.

He came back, after all.

If that taught him anything, it was that he'd never been blighted the way he once believed. The darkness was just one symptom of something so much larger, something he wasn't able to understand at the time or seek support for, but which had left him vulnerable and open; in plain sight of the vultures that soared above his head. He closed his eyes and saw that car driving away out of his life. All of a sudden he knew it had all began that day. It angered him to think his mentors expected him to have filed and neatly stored away something as volatile as that grief at the tender age of eighteen, that he was so obstinately chastised for the crime of being wounded, of being _human_.

 _Master Eraqus knew he did you wrong before the end_ , came a voice at the back of his head. That punctured his heart all the more, remembering how empty and cold his arms had felt as he watched yet another father figure fade from sight to somewhere he couldn't follow. The voice even sounded a bit like Aqua. But when he looked, she was still standing there in silence, watching him with guarded blue eyes.

"I don't have this all worked out," he heard himself say. "But I need your help, Aqua. I need to know you're with me. I can't do any of this alone, not again."

Lea chose that moment to appear behind them, leaning against the doorframe in a way that was probably supposed to look casual.

"Well, well," he said. "Looks like you two are having just as much fun as I am this morning." The easy smile was on his face as always, but the whole effect was ruined by his watery eyes and the smudged eyeliner streaking down his face. "Sorry to inform you, but the party's over. Time to vamoose."

Terra looked back to Aqua. A whole lifetime seemed to pass. He was just starting to lose heart when, finally -

"Okay."

He felt like crying. He only just managed to keep his voice steady. "Okay?"

"Of course I'm with you, Terra," she said. Her eyes slid away. "I've always been with you, even if you didn't realise I was there."

_________________________________________

With the whole night having sneaked up on him so suddenly, he only had a few hours left until he had to check out of his hotel. He was desperate for a bit of sleep but it looked like he'd have to hold off. "Do you want to come back with me?" he asked Aqua, as they stepped out of Lea and Isa's house into the quiet street. "I just want to take a shower before we head home."

She shrugged on her jacket. "Sure. I might have one myself, if that's okay."

"Let me go first," said Terra. "I stink."

"You do a little," she said. "I didn't want to say anything but... smells like you slept in a pile of dirty gym socks."

He laughed. She smiled at first, but the expression dropped off her face quick enough. Awkwardness settled back between them as they made off towards the town centre.

They hadn't really said their proper goodbyes to the others. As soon as Isa came down the hallway, Lea went bolting up the stairs, his feet stomping so loud it was sure to wake the whole street. And if that didn't do it, the resounding slam of his bedroom door had to have sealed the deal. Isa didn't react to any of this. He'd simply informed Terra his clothes weren't dry yet and to leave an address so he could mail them back to him. Then his eyes had fallen on the bottle of whiskey, sitting on the table with its lid off. He'd gone very still.

Aqua noticed where he was looking. "Sorry," she said. "I'll replace it."

"A single bottle costs 20,000 munny," Isa informed her.

"Oh." She'd looked remarkably unabashed, but maybe after the revelations of the night, she had little care for some strange man's penchant for overly expensive booze. "Then all I can do is apologise."

"It doesn't matter," said Isa, turning away. "Take it with you. I don't want it any more."

Those had been his parting words. Terra discreetly returned the whiskey to its place in the cabinet and left, feeling really quite bad about the whole thing.

It wasn't until he stepped into the hotel lobby did he realise he'd left his key-card and his wallet in the pocket of his trousers, meaning they were probably in the process of getting battered about in Isa's tumble dryer. The bored looking receptionist gave him a replacement and waved him past carelessly, barely looking up from her magazine.

"I'll text Lea," said Aqua, as they ascended up the staircase to the room. "Maybe he'll drop them down for us."

Somehow, with the way Terra had blasted through their domestic little set up like a hurricane, it didn't seem likely. "Yeah, maybe."

"He looked upset, didn't he?" she said, the same thought apparently occurring to her. "I wonder what they were arguing about. Can't have been as bad as... well."

Little did she know their two separate arguments happened to concern the same fucking person, for the most part. Terra decided it was best not to mention it.

"Ven never got back to me," she said suddenly. "I was trying to get through to him all night. His phone must have died."

Was he going to have to go through all this, again, with Ven? He wanted a nice long rest before the next mountain of questions and accusations was thrown at him. He was too tired.

Some of those questions unfortunately couldn't wait. Particularly once he and Aqua were in the room and trying to figure out where they'd find the privacy to undress and redress in such a tiny confined space. The bathroom wasn't much more than a closet with a toilet and a shower head hanging skew-whiff off the wall. He'd bring his change of clothes in with him, but then they'd all get wet.

"I could pass your clothes in to you once you're done," Aqua offered. "Or, I could turn around and you could get dressed in the corner?"

"Uh, yeah. Maybe the second one."

"And what was the procedure back home?"

He retrieved his washbag. "Hm?"

"How do I know they weren't watching me?" she asked, pinning him in place with a look. "Anytime I undressed, or was in the bathroom, or-"

"No, no, I said to them," he interrupted hastily. "I can sense where they are when they're nearby, they left you and Ven alone. Don't worry, they wouldn't look twice at you anyway."

She went pink. "Oh. Okay."

"No, not because you're - they're _gay_." And he was getting flustered again. "I didn't mean to imply - I mean, _obviously_ not. You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

The words travelled around the room and then came back to his own ears like some out of body experience. Aqua smiled.

"Terra, that's really not saying much."

"Even so." He couldn't believe he'd just said that. "For what it's worth."

"Well. Thank you anyway."

There was a short tense beat. Terra shook his wash bag, noisily clattering all the cans inside. "I better, uh, take this shower."

His face was burning as he scrubbed himself down, his bandaged leg propped up out the spray. He could even feel arousal stirring low in his belly; a reaction, he was sure, to the question of manoeuvring his own nakedness in Aqua's proximity. Aqua then undressing too, with him in the room. For the first time since he came back into his body, he properly, unambiguously craved that release. He wanted to jerk off and then sleep for a week, and maybe he'd go ahead and do the first if he knew Aqua wasn't going to be using the shower after him. So he simply turned off the spray and dried himself, shivering at the sensation of the terrycloth against all the places he was feeling particularly sensitive. He was so wound up, he was still hard even after he was done shaving his face and styling his hair.

"Terra, will you make sure to tell me if they're nearby?" Aqua asked, when he came back out of the bathroom with the towel knotted strategically at his crotch. "I can't bear to think of them just being there without me knowing it."

"I will," he said. "This is only going to be for a short while, I promise. I just need to figure out how we're going to do this, and then I'll go to Radiant Garden and then hopefully everything will be back to normal."

As if anything would ever go back to normal for either of them. He'd aim for the closest thing to it, anyway. A nice, ghost-free existence.

"You seem committed," she said. She pulled her sweater over her head. Terra turned away to face the wardrobe, feeling his heart start to pound faster. "You must have got to know them pretty well."

"Well, sort of. Xemnas likes to talk."

She didn't say anything in response to that. Instead, Terra heard the zip of her dress coming down, unbelievably loud. Terra busied himself in his bag, trying his very best to make as much noise as possible. He found his boxers and let his towel drop. It was only when he bent down to pull them up his legs did he catch sight of his reflection in the mirror on the wardrobe, and that of Aqua behind him.

He froze. Her eyes darted up and met his in the reflection. Her lips parted and she turned her head away, letting her hair fall over her face.

"Sorry," she said. She was skinning off her long socks, sitting on the edge of the bed in her sports bra and underpants. It was hard not to stare himself, at all that bare pale skin and the sweet curves of her body that balanced out the muscle.

"It's okay."

… Was she just checking him out? Because that would be very okay.

Still, he hastened to pull up his boxers and Isa's borrowed sweatpants and the dress shirt he was supposed to wear out for dinner the night before. He looked stupid, but at least it was both clean and long enough to cover the hard swell in the fabric between his legs.

The bathroom door closed and the shower turned on. He finally let out the breath he'd been holding.

This was too much. His hand snaked down, palming himself through the layers of clothes. Hell, he could come just from this, if he rubbed his hand just right-

The phone rang suddenly and he nearly screamed. The whole set went clattering off the table as he scrambled for it. He hauled the receiver up by the cord and pressed it to his ear. "Yes?" he blurted. "Oh, uh..." He blinked. "Okay. I'll come down for it now."

A plastic bag was waiting for him at reception. There was no note. His t-shirt and torn trousers were still slightly damp but they'd been folded neatly and put inside, along with his wallet and his key-card.

At the bottom of the bag, Isa's bottle of whiskey had been tucked underneath the clothes.

_________________________________________

"Are you sure you don't want one? There's loads here."

"I'm fine."

Terra shrugged and took a mini doughnut out of the bag he'd been offering. Their tray table on the train was piled high with pastries and sweets, quickly depleting as Terra made up for two skipped meals - three, if he counted his lunch of half a burnt sausage from the day before, which he definitely did. He hadn’t realised how starving he was until they arrived at the station and he got a whiff of those delicious baked goods shops. He’d bought one of nearly everything he saw.

Beside him, Aqua sipped her coffee and stared out the window. She’d been avoiding his eye since they'd left the hotel.

He knew he probably had no right to be as smug as he was, considering Aqua had been deprived of human contact just as long as he had. Undoubtedly she was just curious about the experiences both of them had missed out on, the normal experiences of any twenty to thirty year old.

But he couldn’t stop smiling. What a turn-up for the books. Ansem's sorry worthless ass had been kicked to the gutter where it belonged, Aqua was here; she was on his side, and _she'd been checking him out_. Eventually she noticed the goofy expression on his face and frowned at him.

“What do you look so happy about? You’re in my bad books, you know.”

“What for?”

“Seriously?” She stole his Jambon straight out of his hand and took a bite of it. "Let me think. You lied to me, you've allowed two men to wander around our house with impunity for the last month, you sent us all on a wild goose chase last night, you _lied_ to me... oh, and you lied to me." She finished the pastry and wiped her fingers on a napkin. "Did I mention you lied to me?"

"I already apologised for that," he protested. "I really am sorry. I was just... scared."

"Of what?" She snorted. "Did you think I'd be afraid to be around you or something? Because one of them was cowardly enough to attack me when I had no means to defend myself? Please."

"I was scared you'd think I was tainted or something."

Aqua gave him a sharp look. "Don't be so silly."

"You can't really blame me though, can you?" he asked. "After all that nonsense when we were kids?"

"... I guess not."

"For what it's worth, I don't blame you either."

She was confused. "Blame me for what?"

"Looking." He grinned as her eyes widened. "I know I've still got it - _ow!"_ She slapped his arm. Then she slapped his leg. "Hey! Stop hitting me - _argh!"_ She tried to shove him off his seat. "Aqua, hah - stop!"

"Go sit somewhere else - and stop spitting food all down yourself!"

He hadn't laughed like this since, well... since the last time he, Aqua and Ven had spent time together, just as friends. Why wasn't he making more space for that in his life? He'd have to, from this day on. He had no excuses now-

“Am I interrupting something?”

Terra jolted so suddenly even Aqua’s forceful hands were snatched back.

“Terra? What is it? Did I hurt you?”

Xemnas had appeared in the aisle beside him, looking down on the two of them with a raised eyebrow. “I take it you have made some ground with her. Good for you. How much of the truth did you have to omit to do so?”

Oh, he thought he was so clever. Terra gave him a cold smile. “I don’t mean to alarm you, Aqua, but Xemnas is currently standing in the aisle.”

Xemnas's other eyebrow shot up. Beside him, he felt Aqua tense. He turned to see her eyes darting up and down the carriage, looking for some evidence of a disembodied figure she wouldn't find. Eventually, her gaze settled back on Terra. He smiled cautiously.

"Well," she said, after a pause. "Surely he can see there are plenty of empty seats for him to take, then."

Grinning, "Yeah." He turned back Xemnas. "Hey, she says there are plenty of empty-"

"I can hear what she says."

"Alright." He shifted under his intense gaze. "Well, maybe you should sit down then. We're not going to be home for another two and a half hours."

"I had expected she would insist you go straight to Radiant Garden."

"Well, she did. And I will. I'm just not going anywhere near that place until I've got my head straight. I can't do that until I've rested and, more to the point, healed my damn leg. It's itching like crazy, by the way. Tell Ansem thanks from me the next time you see him."

A slow blink. "You are lucky it did not rot off at the knee. I suppose there is still time for the wound to fester."

"Great." He snorted. "Thanks for being so reassuring. I knew I'd done the right thing sticking my neck out for you."

"And I you."

The sarcasm flew straight over his head, as per usual. Terra felt a laugh bubble up inside him and shook his head, leaning back in his seat. That wasn't to say he wasn't touched by the unexpected sentiment. Xemnas lowered himself into the seat directly opposite and the three of them sat there in relatively easy silence as the train swayed and rumbled along the tracks. He could feel Aqua's eyes boring into the side of his face. She wasn't the only one. Half the carriage was craning their heads to stare at the weird man who'd just been talking to himself.

Ven wasn't back at the house yet. It was a quickly darkening winter afternoon and there were no lights on in any the windows as they traipsed up the driveway to their front door.

"Maybe we should have waited for him in the station." Terra was kind of glad they didn't, as terrible as that made him feel. All he could think about was bed.

"Do you think he's okay?" Aqua asked. She pressed her phone to her ear and frowned. "His phone's still dead."

They dithered on the doorstep, Terra turning his key over and over again between his fingers. Come to think of it, wasn't Ven supposed to be staying in Isa and Lea's last night? He hadn't thought to check if he'd gone to bed when the other kids did.

"Let's go inside," she said, shivering slightly. "I'll make some calls, okay? I'm sure it's nothing."

Still, Terra hovered over her shoulder as she went down her list of contacts, phoning the Twilight Town crowd one by one. Apparently Ven had decided to go walking around town after dinner, and no one had seen him since. An hour passed of repeated calls but no further word, and Terra was starting to feel very nervous indeed. He was already mentally preparing himself for the journey back to Twilight Town for a night of frantic searching, when Xion's caller ID suddenly popped up on the screen.

Aqua snatched up the call on the first ring. "Xion? Did you hear anything?" There was a pause. _"What?"_

He didn't like the sound of that. But when Aqua put her phone down, she just looked annoyed. "He's fine, Terra. He just showed up to get his stuff ten minutes ago."

"What happened?"

"Well, apparently he took off with some woman last night."

Terra laughed. "No, really. What happened?"

"I'm sure he'll tell you all the gory details when he gets back." She was already striding past him. "I'm going to bed. I think I've had enough of this day."

"But-" He watched her heels disappear up the stairs. "But he's a _kid!"_

He had no choice but to dump all this on Xemnas instead. He couldn't sleep now, he was too baffled. "That isn't right, is it?" he said, for maybe the fourth time. "I mean, I know he's twenty-seven, but he looks so young, doesn't he? Who would even...? I'm not wrong in thinking this is really weird, am I?"

"I would say your friend could pass for his late teens to early twenties," said Xemnas. He was sitting with his legs crossed on the end of the bed, leaning back comfortably on his elbows. "Not everyone has the luxury of towering over six and a half foot in height. Besides, the only reason you are so uncomfortable with the concept is because you have infantilised him your whole life. You see him as a younger brother rather than a companion you would consider your equal."

It really was very annoying to listen to him prattling off these assumptions he'd made as if they were facts. It was even more annoying to think they might ring truer than Terra would have liked.

"I suspect you resent the thought of him becoming sexually active before you have."

Scowling, Terra kicked out a leg. It flailed through Xemnas's abdomen and flopped back onto the mattress. "Don't be ridiculous."

"I certainly would if I were in your shoes," said Xemnas, giving him a stern look. "The object of your desire lives in the same house as you. She clearly desires you back. You have a perfectly functional body at hand in order to pursue her and yet you don't bother. You are letting your good fortune go to waste."

"Well, you're not. In my shoes, that is. Make sure you keep it that way." He pulled up his blankets and turned off his bedside light. Xemnas laughed softly. For a moment, Terra just lay there and fumed beneath his sheets. He could probably make some wisecrack now about Isa and poke Xemnas where it hurt, but he found he didn't really want to. "So, uh, when did you start...?"

"Hm?"

His face burned. "You know..."

"You mean having sex?" He heard Xemnas sigh. "If you cannot even say the word without blushing like a schoolgirl, then I am afraid to say it is you who is too young, not Ventus. Anyway, I was four."

Terra jolted upright. "Four? What the fuck?"

"Four years into my current identity," Xemnas elaborated, and Terra's eyes nearly rolled out of his skull. "Before that, Ansem and I were still part of the same entity that assumed control after you were summarily ousted from your body. I suppose, in retrospect, that would have made me approximately twenty-five."

This was definitely the point they had to end this conversation - before Xemnas began indulging him with any exploits he might have remembered prior to the split with Ansem. Still, hours passed and Terra's mind was alive and wriggling with vivid thoughts, sliding back and forth on the spectrum between sensual and disturbing.

It seemed he was only just drifting off to sleep when he was suddenly wrenched back, torn from dreams that pulsed pink and red. The throb of wet heat around his dick and mouths licking and moaning against his.

Terra rolled onto his front with a gasp. He'd gathered his blankets into his arms and tucked them between his legs before he could scrape together enough conscious thought to remember his present company. There was a flicker of silver to remind him, as Xemnas’s form flitted out of the dark room like a ghostly bird. Distantly, he felt a bit embarrassed, but once the other was out of sight, Terra was too far gone to even spare him a second thought. The cool air hit his bare ass, his thighs, his back, as he pushed down his pyjama pants and stripped off his t-shirt.

It took a few goes to get the angle right, to adjust his foreskin to prevent uncomfortable friction, but when he did… he clamped his teeth down on the fabric of his pillow and squeezed his eyes shut. He vocalised a little more desperately than he’d like to admit to himself later. After wanting for so long, the rough drag of the sheets against his bare chest and abdomen, and the smooth glide of his cock in his sweaty palm... the way the pressure built and built, coiling tighter and tighter...

It released and he came with a long, breathless moan. He let himself feel every contraction of his balls and every subsequent flare of pleasure before letting his body slump back down to the bed. After, he lay there, staring wearily at nothing in particular, semen drying on his hand.

Xemnas had gone outside, back to his seat on the edge of the porch. The pale gleam through the curtains told him the sun was coming up. Idly, Terra thought he might go down and join him.


	6. Chapter 6

If there was anything Terra was grateful he’d been deprived of his whole life, it was locker room talk. That sort of slinging of crude anecdotes and boasting between men. The triumphant, congratulatory nature of it. It wasn't just that he had no experience under his belt, he just found speaking about people like they were things of conquest struck a little too close to home. That, and being raised by a single mother, with his best friend being a woman, well...

It was for that reason he didn't blast into the kitchen the next morning on a chorus of hooting and whistling, slapping Ventus on the back and yelling, _"Nice one!"_

Even if Ven was expecting it, which he probably wasn't, Terra didn't think he could manage it.

Good thing too, because Aqua was sitting at the table, picking at her porridge with an expression on her face that would make you think someone had just spit in it. At the counter, Ven was viciously stirring an instant coffee, spoon clacking loudly against the inside of the mug. Terra hesitated just outside the door, unsettled by the less than jovial atmosphere between them.

"I just stayed out after the others left," Ven was saying, his scowl rivalling hers. "Look, the more time I spent with them, the more I realised I'm too old to go home and get into bed at ten o'clock. Don't really know what else you want me to say. Besides, you have some nerve asking me to keep you two informed about my whereabouts. Neither of you showed up to dinner the other night - I had to hear from Roxas and Xion that you just decided to make other plans with Lea and not even invite me-"

"That's not what happened."

"-and then when I _do_ hear from you, it's just these weird texts about Terra - is this a joke, by the way?" Ven fished his phone of the pocket of his sweatpants, flicking through his messages. "All this about him going missing and stuff? You know, you don't need to make up some elaborate story to cover the fact you didn't want me around."

Terra was compelled to come into the room and say something. "Ven, Aqua isn't trying to pull the wool over your eyes or anything. It's my fault we all got side-tracked. I... I had a bit of a turn, like the one I had before. Everyone had to go out looking for me."

Ven's eyes darted to his, and then to the floor. "Oh, you two are on the same side now, are you?" He took a mouthful of his coffee and dumped the rest in the sink. "Figures. Well, next time you two want to be alone, just tell me. If I’m going to be the third wheel in this group, I don’t know why we should wait until you two get over yourselves and make it official."

With that, he slouched out past them into the hallway. For a few moments, Terra was at a loss for words. Aqua sighed, pushing her breakfast away.

"I'll talk to him," he heard himself say. "He's just..."

"He's just as moody as you are, when he wants to be." Aqua got up and pulled a slip of paper off the fridge door. "Here."

Terra took it from her and squinted at it. "What's this?"

“It’s Naminé’s phone number,” said Aqua.

“Who?”

“She works with the scientists at Radiant Garden. Call her and get this sorted. You've left it long enough.”

“Oh, okay.” He set the post-it note on the kitchen table. “Will do.”

"Terra, call her _now_.”

That was something he had to build himself up to. "I'll have my breakfast and talk to Ven. Then I'll call her, I promise."

"You know, I'd almost think you were delaying on purpose."

Terra paused in the process of pouring himself some cornflakes. "What?"

"I can't understand why you keep putting it off. If I were you, I'd have been banging down the doors at Radiant Garden the second I realised what was going on." She folded her arms across her chest. "Terra, when you said you 'kind of' liked that man, was that a roundabout way of saying you're all chummy with him now? We're not going to be inviting him over for tea once this is all over, are we?"

"No, of course not."

There was a short pause.

"... Well, I mean, he probably wouldn't want to, anyway."

Aqua's eyes hardened and he hastened to move past that particular point.

“Anyway, Aqua, you're kind of missing the obvious. I feel like there’s a time-bomb underneath me just waiting to explode. People aren't going to react well to this. They’re going to pry, they’re going to make accusations and assumptions, and that's without even mentioning the whole process of actually..." He gestured with his hands. "... _separating_. Do you think I'm in a hurry to have those creeps poking around inside my head? I don't trust any of them as far as I can throw them."

"No one is going to do anything to you while I'm there," said Aqua curtly. "If they did, they'd soon regret it."

That sent a giddy rush of warm flooding through him. Despite knowing she was annoyed with him, he couldn't help but grin. Aqua's mouth twitched slightly. She slid the post-it back to him and tapped her finger on it before turning away.

"Let me know how it goes, okay? With Naminé, and with Ven."

"Aqua," he said, and she halted in the door, looking back over her shoulder. "I was thinking I'd make dinner for the three of us tonight. Seeing as we missed out before. What do you say?"

"Me, you and Ven?"

"Who else?"

She raised her eyebrows and he laughed. Oh, yeah.

"Just me, you and Ven." He folded the post-it note and tucked it in his pocket. "I promise."

"Yeah," she said, allowing herself a small smile. "I'd like that."

With that call looming on his to-do list, the chat with Ven should have felt like a walk in the park. But when he knocked on his door and poked his head into the room, Ven had no apology waiting for him. He didn't even look up from the game he was playing; some fighter platform where his opponent was currently getting the head punched off him quite ferociously.

“Hey,” Terra called to him. “Can I come in?”

Ven shrugged. Terra closed the door behind him and perched carefully on the edge of the mattress.

He found himself thinking of the first time the two of them ever spoke to each other. Not really the most fantastic of memories; Ven spiralling into a post-traumatic episode and then a fucking _coma_ \- all because Terra had asked him the most banal of questions. He sent Ven a sidelong look, but though Ven was clearly shutting him out, his eyes were sharp and narrowed and present as they fixated on the screen.

“That looks fun,” Terra ventured, nodding towards the TV. “Maybe the two of us should start training again. I’ve been a bit out of shape. I’m not saying we should punch each other in the face until we’re unconscious, but maybe some running, or a bit of sparring–”

“Has Aqua sent you in to check up on me?” Ven interrupted. “Because you’re not a very subtle guy, Terra.”

“No. I can do things on my own, funny enough."

"Really."

Terra sighed. "Ven... are you actually angry at me and Aqua? Or is this about what happened the other night with that woman?"

When Ven said nothing, he hazarded a guess. "I take it you aren't seeing her again."

Again, nothing. Terra waited a few moments before continuing. "Did you... want to see her again?"

"No."

“Alright. That’s okay." Pleased he'd got a response, he rubbed his sweaty palms against his trousers, smoothing the fabric down his legs. "You can talk to me about it, if you want. As long as everything was safe and, um, consensual, I'm not going to judge-"

Ven paused his game and gave him a sour look. “Terra, this is like talking about sex with my dad.”

“No, it’s not,” said Terra, grinning. “Your dad would actually know what he’s talking about. I don’t, so blast away. My thirty year old virgin self is all ears.”

"Ugh." Ven put his face in his hands, groaning. "I didn't need to know that."

"In the spirit of fairness, you need to tell me something embarrassing now. What happened? Did it not go very well? Or did you not know what to do-?"

"I knew what to do! God!" Ven rubbed his face and sank back against his pillows. "If you must know, I just... didn't really enjoy it."

Terra waited for him to elaborate. But short of going slightly pink, nothing else came. He had to be prompted to continue. "Go on..." 

"Well, it was just like neither of us were getting anything out of it. Obviously, I'd only known her a few hours so... yeah, there was no connection. I did it for the sake of doing it, for getting it over with, but... now I just feel not too good about myself, to be honest."

He picked at a loose thread on his bedspread. Terra's eyes slid away, considering.

He understood the impulse at least; the urge to quickly indulge in something he'd been deprived of, and he certainly knew how unsettling it was to feel like just a body going through the motions. He imagined involving a stranger to the equation would only exacerbate matters.

"Well," he said, trying to find a positive. "Even if that was a shitty experience, it's good you've realised what you want. You want a connection with someone. A relationship, maybe?"

"Maybe." Ven gave him a searching look. "Isn't that what _you_ want? Have to say, it's weird getting girl advice from you when you're clearly in love in Aqua, have been for years, and you've never done anything about it."

"That's not-"

"I wasn't lying before when I said I felt like the third wheel, you know. I always have, that's just how it is."

"Yeah, but-"

"It's annoying though," Ven continued, over his protests. "That's the dynamic we all fell into, and yet you two still won't take the opportunity to be with each other when you clearly want to be together."

Terra waited a beat to make sure he wasn't going to be interrupted again. "I couldn't before."

"Well, you can now. So just sort it out, will you?"

If only life was so easy. Sometimes he couldn't help but feel like there might always be something keeping him and Aqua at that distance. Some obstacle or another. The possession and its fallout aside, his own insecurities were like a mountain between them he still couldn't make his way over to reach her. Even when he sorted out his current little issue with his ghostly companions, what would come next? Would Aqua be cold with him if he _did_ want to keep in contact, after the fact? And if they got over that, then what? How much more could they withstand before their bond snapped under the strain?

How long before the two of them decided it would just be so much easier to take up with someone new? Someone without a permanent tangled trail of crap dragging behind their every step?

He didn't think he could handle having her and then losing her. It would be too much.

_________________________________________

"Friday," he said to Xemnas, as he hung up the phone. "One o'clock."

His heart was pounding in his ears, his blood surging with adrenaline. Though Naminé had been very sweet on the call; informing Terra they were quite busy on other projects but that if the matter wasn't urgent they could pop him in on their lunch hour at the end of the week, Terra decided then and there, yes, it _wasn't_ urgent, and then decided to be very vague about the details.

 _"So let me note this down for Ienzo,"_ Naminé had said. _"'Some lingering concerns... post-possession... nothing serious... Friday at one o'clock'. That sound alright?"_

"Yep," he'd said, swallowing the lump in his throat. "Sounds perfect."

He pressed his phone to his mouth, the plastic cool against his lips. Shit.

"I do appreciate being referred to as a 'lingering concern'," said Xemnas. He was sitting on the edge of Terra's desk, his legs crossed at the ankles. Terra had stopped making his bed, knowing Xemnas was far less inclined to make himself comfortable on it if it was a mess. "And considering you have been possessed twice in the last month, declaring the situation to be nothing serious is generous to say the least."

"What was I supposed to say?" Terra set his phone down and went to the other side of the room to tidy away the stuff still lying around from his trip. He still couldn't quite meet Xemnas's eye after the night before. Xemnas hadn't said anything, but Terra would almost rather he made fun of him than have them avoid the subject entirely out of embarrassment. "I'm not going to launch into the minutiae of the situation over the phone to some girl I've never met."

"Why do you have that?"

Terra looked down at the torn pair of trousers in his hands in confusion, and then past them to the bottle of whiskey poking out of the bag. Oh.

"Isa gave it to me," he was forced to admit. When there was no response, he glanced over his shoulder and recoiled when he found a pair of vivid gold eyes inches from his face. "Fuck! Don't sneak up on me!"

Xemnas stepped through him, tracing his translucent fingers up the neck of the bottle. Backing up so they weren't standing all up in each other, Terra dumped his torn trousers in the bin and watched him curiously.

“Can you... feel that?” he asked.

“No.” Xemnas lowered his arm back down to his side. “Sometimes if I concentrate, I can almost recall the way things felt. Unfortunately, there is no comparison of sensation through leather as there is against bare skin. Even in this non-corporeal form, just the awareness I am wearing gloves dulls the memory somewhat."

“Oh." And then, before he could think better of it, "Do you want to have a glass?”

It was worth the stupidity and recklessness of his offer to see how Xemnas reacted. The way his body tensed and then deliberately relaxed, as if he’d, in that split second, been torn between his natural reaction and the impulse to control it. Terra wished he could be so on guard himself. After all, here he was, offering up his fucking body the way someone else might offer up a ride on their bicycle.

The doubts crawled in after the fact. “Just for a little while,” he said, floating at Xemnas's side as the other wandered around the room. “I have to make dinner soon." Xemnas had left the whiskey for the time being; instead, he was just picking up random things and holding them. Amused in spite of himself, Terra added, "Enjoying yourself there?"

Xemnas hummed. He had the hem of one of Terra's curtains in hand, rubbing the cheap fabric between his fingers. "I could cook it for you," he said. "As far as I remember, it is not quite your forte."

"If you do it for me, I won't get better at it," Terra said. "Besides, I'm doing it as a gift for Aqua and Ven."

"It serving as a gift counts on you being good at it." Xemnas opened the latch on the window and pushed it open, letting the cool evening air drift into the room. Terra watched the wind ruffle the hair around his face; dark around pale, where the opposite should have been true. How strange. All the time before when he was watching Xehanort from the outside, and recently with Ansem, the horror and trauma had been so... real. So huge. And to think he was almost unmoved by the sight now; simply because he'd _allowed_ it. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he knew there was something wrong here. Something had gone screwy in his brain for him to do this, of his own free will.

Or was this what trust felt like?

For a few moments there was just silence, disturbed only by the sounds of light traffic on the road at the bottom of the garden.

"Not quite the view you were used to from your old castle?" he asked, sliding into the space beside him at the sill, their elbows overlapping.

"Not quite," Xemnas agreed. "Though no worse. There is a simplicity to this house, this town, to yourself and the life you have chosen. Even as a mere spectator, it is... nice to experience it."

"What will you do after this?"

"Whatever I like."

Nervously, Terra attempted to drum his fingers against the sill in a way that looked casual, but his hand passed straight through the wood. "Do you want to stay in contact?"

"Is that what you want?"

"Well, I don't see why I shouldn't stick you on my Christmas card list." He snorted to himself. "I mean, you'd be the only one on there. I don't have any other family or anything."

Xemnas said nothing. Eventually, he turned away from the window and picked up the whiskey bottle. Terra jolted as he made a beeline for the door.

"Hey, wait, where are you going? They'll see you!"

"You offered me a glass," said Xemnas. "Only a savage would drink whiskey of this calibre out of the bottle."

And he was away, the stairs creaking as he made his downstairs as he pleased. Cursing inwardly, Terra followed him down to the kitchen, listening out for any sign of Aqua or Ven wandering around the house. Aqua's bedroom door was closed, and if he could very faintly hear the sound of Ven's PlayStation. Of course, he could've just paused his game and gone down to the kitchen for a snack, or either of them might come out of the bathroom, or come looking to ask him something-

"You are being very distracting," said Xemnas, as he opened the cupboards in search of a suitable glass.

"Well, now you know how it feels to be me." Terra scooted back a few inches so he wasn't hovering directly over him. "Listen, if my friends come down, you have to let me back in. No weird business, okay?"

"I think the threshold for weird business was met last night, and I was not the instigator."

Groaning, "Oh, piss off. Don't make me regret doing you this favour."

The whole point of this endeavour was to cheer Xemnas up, but when he finally got his glass poured and sat himself down on the porch to drink it, he just looked a bit depressed. He took the whiskey in small sips, staring down the garden, not speaking.

"Is it alright?" Terra asked.

"It is exceptional."

A pause. "Then... are _you_ alright?"

"Hm." He tilted his head slightly. "I may be feeling a little heartsick."

"I thought you already knew it was over."

"I did and I do," said Xemnas. "But I suppose this is just the pain of being human."

And for the second time today, Terra found himself in the situation where he had to find something to say, for which he was not qualified. "I've heard the best way of getting over someone is to get under someone new."

After his conversation with Ven, that was maybe not the most tactful thing he could have come up with. Xemnas looked at him and he blushed.

"I mean, women say that about men... I'm not making assumptions about, um, that-"

"Yes, thank you." Xemnas finished off the glass and set it to the side. "I shall keep that in mind for the future. I have little opportunity to act on it now."

"Terra, what's this?"

Ven's footsteps came out behind them on the porch suddenly and Terra jolted up in a whirlwind of panic. Ven had the bottle of whiskey in hand, his eyebrows practically lodged in his hairline. "Since when do you drink spirits?" he asked.

Through the alarms blaring in his head, Terra held out his hand. "Quickly, swap with me." When Xemnas ignored him, he raised his voice indignantly. _"Hey!"_

"Since approximately fifteen minutes ago," Xemnas said, looking up over his shoulder. "You are welcome to try some."

"Yeah, no thanks. It smells like petrol mixed with nail varnish. You're not doing this just to impress Aqua, are you?"

Xemnas sighed. "Do you really believe an intelligent woman like Aqua would be impressed by something so platitudinous?"

"Uh..." Ven blinked. "No...?"

"Then why imply I know her so little as to think that she would? Please, Ventus. I know the two of us are about as bright as Arendelle in December, but do not do me this insult." He rose to his feet and picked up his glass. "In fact, while you are here, you may as well make yourself useful. Come, help me prepare dinner."

Terra didn't know whether to laugh or scream. "What are you doing?" he asked, following Xemnas into the kitchen. Ven came in behind them hesitantly, still blinking away like a small confused owl.

"I am preparing your _mise-en-place_ for you," said Xemnas. "Seeing as your failure to keep on top of all the composite parts of your recipe led to its destruction the last time."

" _My_ failure?" Ven repeated. "What..."

"Actually," said Terra. "You led to its destruction last time. You made me drown my onions."

Xemnas laughed. "Ah, yes. That was rather amusing."

" _What_ was?"

Poor Ven. Terra was starting to feel bad, but he couldn't help but snicker himself at the memory. Weirdly, that day felt like years ago now. "Right, enough of that. Give me back my body." He held out his hand again. This time, Xemnas obliged. The instant he slid back beneath his own skin, Terra gagged at the sour taste of whiskey lingering at the back of his throat. " _Ugh!"_ He quickly rinsed the glass and filled it up with water, sloshing it around his mouth. "That is _disgusting!"_

"Terra, what the hell is going on?" Ven peered closely at his face. "Wait, are these the sort of conversations you have with yourself when you're alone in your room? Cause I'm not going to lie, it's pretty weird. What was that big affected voice you just put on there?"

"Sorry," Terra said. "Don't worry, all back to myself now-"

"Unbelievable."

That voice cracked through the room like a gunshot. Terra whipped around.

Well, guess who had chosen that moment to finally reappear. Standing at the other side of the room with his arms folded across his chest and his eyes fixed in cold contempt, not on Terra, but on Xemnas.

Whatever it was he was declaring unbelievable, Terra didn't care a jot. Fury washed over him suddenly like a boiling wave. The nerve of him, to just pop in and show his unpleasant face again after what he did. No apology, no shame, nothing-

"Hey!" Terra snapped, and Ven took a few startled steps back, bumping into the kitchen table. "Get the fuck _out_ of here! You're not welcome!"

He may as well have been yesterday's crumpled newspaper, chucked to the side and ignored. Ansem didn't bother to dignify him with so much as a look. To Terra's immense annoyance, it was Xemnas who clicked his tongue and reprimanded him his outburst. "That is hardly productive," he said.

"But he-"

"Mind your current company," Xemnas added, nodding his head towards Ven. "It is one thing to engage in a few japes, it is an entirely other matter to lose your temper and become aggravated without a reasonable explanation at hand."

Ven had now edged back so far he was nearly out the door, his eyes very wide. Terra bit back his retort and rubbed the heel of his palms over his eyes. He was supposed to think rationally, now? He was supposed to be calm and collected, _now?_

"Sorry, Ven," he managed, his jaw clenched so tight he was sure his face muscles were about to go into spasm. "I, uh, thought I saw something there but... yeah, no, my mistake."

"Saw something?" Ven looked skeptical. "Like what?"

"Uh..." Terra's eyes went back to Ansem. "A rat."

"A _rat?_ What, in the _kitchen?"_

"Yeah, that's right. A big stinking filthy rat, coming in where it doesn't belong."

Xemnas sighed. Ansem finally dragged his eyes away; giving Terra a dismissive look up and down before returning his full attention to Xemnas. "It is really quite pathetic to see what you've become," he said. "Playing lapdog to this simpleton for scraps from the table."

To think Xemnas stood up for this piece of shit. Terra didn't know where the hell he pulled his patience from, but the expression on Xemnas's face as he regarded Ansem was more resigned than annoyed. "I am not interested in fighting for the sake of fighting," he said. "And neither should you be. We are past that."

"Past any sense of self-respect, by the looks of things," Ansem retorted. "Imagine, it was not all that long ago people were calling you _superior_."

"If you are angry because you were humiliated, then I understand," said Xemnas calmly. "But it might be worth examining if your anger comes from having to accept someone is giving you something you didn't have to take by force."

Ansem let out a short sharp laugh. "Xemnas, stop while you're ahead. You might have convinced this little fool you can spare more than a single passing thought to anyone other than yourself, but it doesn't work on me. Or have you actually fallen for your own con?"

At that moment, Terra's attention was pulled away by Aqua coming into the room. She glanced at Terra, then at Ven, then at Terra again. "Everything alright?" she asked. "I thought I heard raised voices."

"I'm just getting started on dinner," Terra blurted. "Uh, yeah, I was just... I'll call you down when it's ready." He turned away from the four of them, rifling through the drawers for his ingredients. He heard Ven whispering something and felt his neck heat up. It wouldn't take very long for Aqua to figure out what was going on. Ansem and Xemnas's argument continued behind him, Terra listening in carefully.

"You are still parroting Xehanort's truth," Xemnas was saying. "Yet you and I are here, and he is not. Why make the discovery of yourself, and by extension the people around you, a pursuit based on the beliefs of a dead man? You will never make it anywhere."

"'Make it'," Ansem echoed. "I suppose that's why you're coddling up to this sorry lot. You still think you're going places, but you know no one with half a brain in their head will have you. It will be interesting to see how long you can you live out your own delusions before the truth eats you up inside."

"You said yourself, there is more to life than what we'd been led to believe."

"I did, didn't I?" said Ansem, smiling coldly. "Perhaps I was mistaken."

"And until you let yourself learn otherwise, you will wallow in that thought and it will destroy you for real. Let us make an arrangement." Terra looked round curiously as Xemnas took a few steps forward towards the other. "If your life means so little to you, then I will claim it. Until you grow to treasure it for yourself."

A tin of sweetcorn tumbled out of Terra's grasp and clattered onto the counter. He didn't like the sound of that at all. Even Ansem looked taken aback; the sneer withering off his face.

Over at the door, Terra could see Aqua watching him closely as he watched them. Staring, for what it must have looked like to her, into the centre of the room at nothing.

"Why would I ever agree to something so absurd?" said Ansem, after a tense pause. "I don't need you. I have never needed you."

Xemnas took another step forward, the tips of their boots almost touching. Seeing them face to face like this, it was extraordinary how alike they were. And yet, if one of them stepped into the other, all their edges would protrude and overlay; feathers of hair and points of bones. All that stupid leather and metal they wore. Terra wondered where he would fit, if he barged over right now and forced his way between them.

"There is need, and there is everything else," said Xemnas. "Best not to let it get confused."

_________________________________________

"Why do you even bother?" Terra asked him later, while he was measuring out the rice to go with his chilli. "He's not worth the effort."

He kept his voice at a low whisper. Aqua was currently setting the table; Ven away out to get some wine from the shop. There had been some initial strain, but after several minutes of him not acting like a complete weirdo, the two of them had settled in to helping him cook. By that point, Ansem had slithered out without another word and Xemnas had fallen into pensive silence in the corner, staring out the window into the dark garden. Eventually, he came over to inspect Terra's final product.

"I am sure plenty have and will say the same to you about me," he said astutely, peering into the pot.

Thinking of Lea, Terra cringed. "That's different. I know you. You're nothing like him."

"No, the difference is this. After our separation, Ansem was alone for years. He never placed value in companionship. Even if I scuppered my own chance at happiness, I was, at least, able to discover what I want and need from others. Unless you want to make the case that there are just those who are inherently bad, then I would argue he has just never been in the position to let himself be vulnerable."

Terra made a face. "No offence, but even thinking about this is creeping me out-"

"Terra." Aqua came up behind him, her mouth pursed. They both looked at her; Terra sheepish, Xemnas annoyed. "I thought this evening was supposed to be about the three of us."

"Oh, it is." He hastened to empty the rice into the water he'd left to boil over on the stove. "Sorry, there was just - uh, some developments-"

"I understand," she said, in a tone that implied the complete opposite. "But maybe you could ask if we could be left alone for a couple of hours. I'm sticking my neck out for you to Ven, the least you could do is stick by your word to me."

Terra glanced at Xemnas. "I mean, I did promise..."

"Of course." Xemnas gave him a thin-lipped smile. "I see little to be gained in lingering where I am not welcome."

"It's not _personal_ ," Terra managed, before he promptly disappeared through the nearest wall. "Oh, for the love of god!"

"Do you need any more help with the food?" Aqua asked, as if nothing was out of the ordinary. As if Terra wasn't at that moment pulling on his hair and groaning. "What about a bowl of salad or something?"

Why was everyone being so damn _difficult_ today? He felt like the neutral party being pulled between multiple different fronts of battle and not being able to choose a side, therefore pissing everyone off. "Salad sounds great," he choked. His head was already feeling a little fuzzy from the whiskey, but when Ven came in with his shopping bag, Terra made a grab for it. "I'll get this poured, shall I?"

"Yeah, I didn't know whether to get red or white so I got both." Ven's face went slightly pink. "So, uh... whatever you guys prefer."

Two large glasses through a bottle of pinot noir, Terra realised he'd just drank himself past the point of pleasantly tipsy. He tried to mask it by stuffing himself full of chilli, rice and salad, but he saw Aqua and Ven exchanging a look. There was very little conversation, just the odd clink of cutlery against plates and some awkward throat clearing. What a fucking disaster.

"Ven, do you want to come to Radiant Garden with us on Friday?" he asked, trying to fill up the silence. "You know, seeing as we didn't get to do the things we'd planned in Twilight Town."

Aqua looked up sharply. "Friday?"

"Yeah, Friday lunchtime." He thought about it for a moment. "Well, I have to uh, go over some stuff with the scientists first so maybe you come up on the Saturday?"

"What are you two going to Radiant Garden for?" Ven asked, mopping up the last of his chilli with some bread. "And why do you need to see those guys? They're real weirdos. You should hear some of the things Roxas and Xion told me about them."

"Oh, it's nothing serious. Just, um..."

Ven frowned. "This is about you talking to yourself, isn't it?"

Terra was just taking a sip of water at that time and inhaled half of it into his lungs. "W-what?" he coughed. Aqua leaned over to slap him on the back.

"Roxas and Xion told me about their old boss too, you know. How you look just like him." He shrugged. "It all sounded so similar to my situation with Roxas and... the others, I just thought to myself I wouldn't be surprised if that man's death meant something went back to you in the end. I suppose you're able to communicate with him, then? Is that what all that was before? Sounds like you were having a grand old time of it."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Ventus-"

"You might have come and mentioned it to me at some point, though. It's not like I'm the one person who's experienced this more than anyone else."

Beside him, Aqua gasped. Terra felt like Ven had just slapped him. And then kicked him. He'd have deserved it too. "I'm sorry," he said. "I... I forgot."

"Good for you."

No one seemed to know what to say then. Ven took a mouthful of wine and then looked over at the bottles on the counter. "Did you buy that whiskey for _him?"_

"No," Terra said miserably. "His ex gave it to me."

"Who's his ex?"

"Saïx. Uh, Isa, I mean. He lives in Twilight Town with Lea, Roxas and Xion."

"Oh, that guy with the blue hair?" Ven made a face and muttered, "Looks like someone must have got their 'type' from you."

Terra went to say something to the contrary and realised he couldn't. A thick audible silence descended on the table. He wanted to throw himself through the window and run away down the street. He didn't dare look over at Aqua.

Then, someone laughed. To his amazement, Aqua had her hand over her mouth, stifling her snorts. When they turned to her questioningly, she just shook her head. "There's some ice cream in the freezer," she said, pushing to her feet. "Does anyone want dessert?"

Terra looked at Ven.

"... Okay," said Ven. "I'd like some."

"That sounds great, Aqua." He chanced his arm. "You guys want to go out for a walk after this?"

"But it's dark out."

If Aqua's laughter hadn't broken the tension between them, that certainly did. Terra snorted. As if it being dark out should mean anything to _them_.

"Ven, I think we'll be fine. Do you want us to bring a flashlight or something?"

That sent Aqua off again and she doubled over, leaning on the freezer door for support. Terra couldn't help but join in. Ven rolled his eyes.

"Great," he said loudly. "Hilarious. Yeah, some things never change."

"Aw, you love us anyway." Terra reached over and ruffled his spiky hair. Ven shoved his hand away, and Terra let himself enjoy that same rush of warmth from before, welling him up inside.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whew, first post of 2021 - happy belated new year! I'm nearly at the end of this story - estimating there will be... about ten chapters in total? Considering this was only going to be a short thing originally, I'm amazed at all the support its gotten so far. It's really way more than I ever anticipated. Hope you enjoy this next chapter!

Though he was effectively on the home stretch to sweet sweet freedom, Terra couldn't help but wake up most days that week with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Funnily enough, it seemed little to do with the trip to Radiant Garden and all the uncertainty of what might happen there, even when it had been looming over the back of his mind like a sinister shadow all this time. Now, as far as he was concerned, all that was like a dot on the horizon compared to this residual tension in the house; with Ven, with Aqua, its knock-on effect on their dynamic in general.

It was for that reason he was trying to spend as much time with them as possible, even if on some of the less positive days they were just sitting around browsing their phones in silence or watching crappy TV. At least they weren't arguing. He was getting tired of fighting his corner all the time, apologising for his stupid mistakes.

Some days were good though - today being one of them. Terra had found an ancient deck of cards shoved in the back of a desk drawer and gathered the two of them downstairs to play a few games. Ven put on a CD and Aqua put some snacks out on the table, and something which started out slightly awkward became hilariously competitive in a matter of minutes.

 _"Yes!"_ Ven threw down his last card on the pile, grinning widely. "What's that, my fourth win in a row? You guys suck at this."

Aqua sniffed. "Don't be so smug, Ven. There's no skill in card games. It's pure luck. Pure chance."

"What was that?" Ven cupped his ear. "Did you hear that, Terra? That weird sound just now? Sounded like... a sore loser."

"Just hurry up and deal!"

"You deal!" Ven retorted. "Oh wait, yeah. The winner has to deal. The victor. He who triumphed over all others. Wasn't that _me?_ Four times in a _row?"_

Terra threw his remaining cards onto the table with a snort. "Alright, He Who Triumphed Over All Others. Get a flaming move on."

"So salty." Ven dealt them a new round, still grinning off every side of his face. "You two really don't like me beating you at things, do you? _Master_ Aqua and Terra the... well..."

"Hey!" Terra yelped, though it was hard to be offended when Ven was smiling like that. "I might not be a keyblade master, but I've accomplished things too, you know."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

He opened his mouth to respond - and promptly closed it again. Compared to his endless stream of blunders and disasters all piling up on top of each other, whatever 'achievements' he'd ever made were so small they could probably be squeezed into a matchbox, with room to spare. He... couldn't really think of anything off the top of his head.

There was a short pause while he tried to scrounge up some kind of answer. Aqua looked up from her cards, not smiling.

Ven seemed to think he'd maybe gone too far. "Sorry," he began. "That wasn't - I shouldn't have-"

The obvious answer finally came into him. "I came back from the darkness," Terra said suddenly. "I know we all did, sort of, but... I'm at least proud of that." Eager to keep the mood light, he added, "Oh, and for being able to stick you two for all these years. That's an accomplishment and a half."

Aqua scooped a handful of crisps out of a bowl and chucked them across the table at him.

"Watch it," she said. "As Ven pointed out, _I'm_ the keyblade master here. I'll knock you both into the next century if you don't treat me with a bit more respect."

"Well!" Terra brushed the greasy salt and vinegar mess off the front of his t-shirt. "You really think you could take us both at once?" He turned to Ven. "Hear that, Ven? She thinks she could take us both at once."

"I'd rather settle this over a game of cards," said Ven, who looked like he didn't know whether to laugh or not.

"Speaking of which..." Terra picked up his hand. "What were we playing again? Pass us those crisps, Aqua. Try not to throw them all over me this time."

The bowl skidded across the table. "It's the dealer's choice, Terra."

"Alright, Ven," said Terra, fanning out his cards to take a proper look at them. "Let's see if you've picked something you're not good at, for a-"

He jolted in his seat - only just managing to keep hold of his cards before he flipped them all over the table. Xemnas had just materialised behind Ven's chair like some kind of merchant of death.

Aqua and Ven looked up.

"Woo!" Terra whistled, in a rather lousy attempt to cover up his reaction. "Damn, I got some good cards."

Ven raised an eyebrow. "You're not meant to tell us, you know."

"I need you to do something for me," said Xemnas, and if his appearance wasn't bad enough, the sound of his voice shattered the comfort of the scene like a stone through the window. "Now."

Oh good. Great. Wonderful. They were going to have to take this into another room. Ever since Terra's 'condition' and the reason for all his strangeness of late had been outed, Aqua and Ven's patience screeched to a near stop when he wasn’t quite able to keep his interactions with the 'other side' discreet. It didn't matter the context or the circumstances.

Sometimes it didn’t even have anything to do with Xemnas _or_ he who had unfortunately returned. In fact, Terra hadn't seen either of them in days, just sensed them loitering on the peripheral of his consciousness. But this morning, for instance, Ven happened to overhear Terra mumble a string of curses to himself when he stubbed his toe on the bathroom door and come storming out of his bedroom, snarling, “For the love of god, can’t he even let you go to the toilet in peace?”

Terra's cover might've already been blown, however. Aqua was watching him closely, her brow pinched beneath her shock of blue hair. It was getting longer than he'd ever seen it, scraped back into a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck.

"We're on Jack Change It, by the way," said Ven.

"Right." He cleared his throat. "Uh, Aqua, aren't you going first-?"

"Did you not hear me?" To Terra’s horror, Xemnas then passed through Ven and stopped in the centre of the table, his blocky dark form swallowing up the rest of the cards. “Do not ignore me.”

There was no ignoring him even if he tried. Reluctantly, he set his cards face down on the table and pushed back his chair, muttering, "Hold on, I have to go to the bathroom."

"Terra," said Aqua, something of a warning in her voice.

"Just give me a minute." He nearly made to follow Xemnas through the closed door like an idiot. Once he was upstairs and locked in the bathroom, where he was sure they wouldn't be overheard unless Aqua and Ven were to press their ears up against the door, he turned to him with a scowl. "Right," he said, not bothering to sound diplomatic. "What's this all about?"

"I need you to let me in."

Well, that wasn't a big ask or anything. Terra waited for a follow up explanation. It didn't come.

"Okay," he said slowly. "So, uh... I'm not going to do that, not right this minute. I'm hanging out with my friends."

Xemnas regarded him coolly. "Yes, and I have been keeping my distance as per your wishes. Surely it is not unreasonable for me to make this one request of you now."

"First of all, you're not making a request, you're making a demand. Secondly, what do you mean my wishes? I never asked you to keep your distance." A sudden thought occurred to him. "Is... is this because I asked you to give us some space the other night at dinner? That wasn't... that was just for a couple of hours - I didn't mean _indefinitely_ -"

Xemnas interrupted him with a wave of his hand, as if _he_ wasn't the one who'd brought this up in the first place. "Your answer is no. That is all I needed to hear."

And then he was leaving - making swiftly for the nearest wall. Terra's mouth fell open.

"Woah, woah - wait a minute! What's going on with you? What do you need the body for so suddenly?"

He froze. It crossed his mind just then that he wouldn't ever be inclined to think of it as 'the body' ever again. Since coming home, he'd been flip flopping back and forth on whether he really thought of it as his and his alone, as _himself_ , rather than some object he'd only reclaimed possession of. But in a matter of days, _two_ more days, to be precise... he'd have it back in its entirety.

The thought knocked him for six. He almost didn't even notice Xemnas was still in the room until the other spoke again.

"If my having a drink was justification enough for you before, then do I really need to give you a reason?"

Terra blinked, coming back into himself. "Look," he started. "Let's not play mind games, okay? This is almost over, for both of us. Just... give me a straight answer. Please."

"I need it."

"I know - I heard you."

"No," said Xemnas. "I _need_ it."

Silence met those words. Terra had a vague notion what they might mean, though he wasn't sure voicing it wouldn't make the other man close up on him right away. It seemed worth the risk of it, rather than avoid asking altogether and appearing disinterested. After all, they might be parting ways soon, at least in the most immediate sense, but that didn't mean Terra didn't _care_.

"Are you alright?" he asked, hoping Xemnas would know by the tone of his voice that Terra did not mean the question casually.

A pause.

"No," came the answer. Short, somewhat reluctant. Just as Terra expected.

Considering Xemnas's expression hadn't faltered, it seemed very unlikely he was about to start airing out his feelings. And bottling things up wasn't healthy even in the short term, even if it was only two more days. If Xemnas thought this might help...

Terra wanted to help.

He shifted his weight between his feet. "Okay," he said again. "Give me five minutes."

Aqua and Ven's muttered conversation dropped off the instant he inched back into the living room. "I have to go out for a little bit," he told them. "You guys play on without me, I'll be back soon."

From the way their faces darkened, they'd figured him out right away.

"Are you kidding me?" said Ven.

"It's important," Terra said. "If it wasn't, I wouldn't... you know."

"Where are you going?" Aqua was already on her feet. "I'll come with you."

"Just out. Don't worry, I'll be fine."

She lifted her jacket off the back of the door, undeterred.

"She can come," said Xemnas from behind him. "If she thinks she can keep up." He drifted through the front door before Terra could ask them where the hell they were even going. While Xemnas being amenable to Aqua's company was reassuring, something clenched his guts at the thought of it. He couldn't see her being particularly happy once she realised the purpose of this outing.

He toed on his trainers, considering.

"Aqua," he started slowly. "I appreciate you want to come, but I'd rather go by myself."

She raised an eyebrow. "Then you'll have to just outrun me, won't you."

Exasperated, Terra looked over at Ven. He was still seated at the table, quietly tidying away the cards.

"Are you going to chase me too?" Terra asked him. He meant it in good humour, but Ven didn't smile. His eyes slid from Terra to Aqua and back again.

"I'll pass," he said. "You two have fun frolicking through the fields together."

Terra left the house feeling like he'd been kicked out. Aqua stayed close at his side.

"You don't have a head's start on me this time," she said. She had her feet braced as if they really were about to start racing each other down the street. It was a funny thought, reminding him of better times. When they were young and life wasn't nearly this complicated.

"I guess." He glanced at Xemnas, who was waiting expectantly at the end of the drive. Well, there was nothing else for it.

As he slid out of the body, he didn’t miss how its posture changed; the shoulders pulling back, chin tipping up. The way the features on its face slid into cool impassivity as Xemnas assumed control.

He saw Aqua notice too, saw her head tilt in confusion, and loved her for it.

"Hold on," Xemnas said, and his intentions only became clear to Terra a second too late. The corridor was already opening around him and beneath him, tendrils of darkness snaking up round his body in thick shadowy fingers. Terra caught sight of Aqua's eyes blowing wide, her mouth falling open in a gasp, before he was soaring away from the scene; carried on the current, leaving her behind in a little beam of sunshine.

_________________________________________

It was weird.

Terra's disembodied form seemed to still be working off the presumption he could interact with his own body, even if he couldn’t physically touch anything else around him. Like the awareness of its new state only began once it had to consider an object or environment outside of its own parameters. Thus, as he sat there cross-legged on the ground, he'd spent several minutes testing out the physics of resting his chin in his hand, scratching his scalp, hitting his own funny bone; being very confused about the whole thing.

When he’d voiced all this aloud, Xemnas had asked him, “What do you think is stopping you from tumbling straight through the ground towards the earth’s core?” and the thought alarmed Terra so much he’d forced them to move on quickly from the subject.

And, naturally, there wasn't much else to think about except for the bleeding obvious.

“You might’ve given her a word of warning or something."

Terra couldn't imagine what Aqua must be thinking right now. If she'd screamed for Ven or just turned dejectedly and went back into the house. Literally all the possible scenarios were bad. In none of them was Aqua smiling, nodding to herself in understanding, nor was she seeing the funny side of things. She was going to be pissed. She was going to be _so pissed_.

“I mean,” he continued. “Just cause you’ve blown your chance with the blue-haired love of your life, doesn’t mean you also have to blow it with mine-”

A rock sailed through his head and thumped away through the grass.

Terra snorted. Xemnas didn't otherwise respond to the jibe so he didn't press the point, instead settling back into silent observation. Xemnas had brought them up to a shelf between two high mountains, far higher than Master Eraqus's grave, far too high and too deep into the range to see the city any more. He was standing in the centre of the clearing, hands raised, blinding white light in the centre of his palms. He'd been chipping huge slabs out of side of the mountain, apparently just for the sake of having something large and heavy to smash apart. Another huge boulder the size of a bus split away with an almighty _crack_ as loud as a thunderbolt and floated slowly towards him. The gaping cavern it left behind made Terra nervous.

"Careful you don't cause a landslide," he said. "You're messing with the foundations."

"It is a somewhat tempting notion," Xemnas murmured. The boulder floated fifty feet high, circling sinisterly above their heads. If he dropped it, the body would be crushed like a flea. "Say I were to throw this over the peak of the mountain and let it roll down its face, where do you think it would land?"

"Uh, probably on my house. So, yeah. Don't be doing that."

"I have never had the leisure of toying with my powers so," said Xemnas. "There were always eyes watching. I couldn't afford to be spontaneous even for a split second - it would have cost me my position as leader."

"I thought you threw all sorts of shit at Sora-"

"That was life or death."

He promptly released his hold and the boulder came hurtling down to earth like a meteorite.

Terra had watched him do this over and over again for the past hour, but each time he still sucked in an inadvertent gasp of fright. Xemnas vanished and there was dance of frantic, vivid red slashes in mid air. Then the boulder was gone and it began raining rocks the size of footballs. The noise as they hit the ground was deafening.

He couldn't be harmed by any external force in this form, but Terra instinctively hunched into himself like a crab retreating to the safety of its shell. Xemnas lowered himself down amidst the rubble, barely having broken a sweat.

"Not satisfied yet?" Terra asked, noting the tension between his brows.

"Decidedly not," he said. "Perhaps I need a living opponent."

"Oh, well... there _are_ bears up here. And mountain lions and stuff. Though you've probably scared them all off with that racket you're making."

Xemnas didn't even dignify that with a response. He waved a hand and three Nobodies materialised out of nowhere.

Terra recoiled even further. God, they were creepy. Far creepier than his Dusks. They were taller than men, with tiny pinched waists and very broad shoulders. No faces, just a pointed head striped once horizontally and vertically in a crude likeness of where the eyes and nose should be. It was hard to know where the hell they were looking.

They stood before their master in solemn silence, not moving an inch. Xemnas seemed to consider them a few moments before summoning his blades and chopping one of their heads off.

"Well," said Terra, watching the rest of its body promptly wither away. The other two didn't so much as twitch. "Okay then."

"They will not indulge me my little games," said Xemnas, tilting his head. "And yet they will not attack me even to defend themselves. My Sorcerers are a different breed to the other Lesser Nobodies. They have no sense of self preservation, but they do have pride. I wonder..."

"What?"

"I wonder if that was my own undoing." He dismissed them with another wave of his hand. "As the years passed, I remember the doubts creeping in. I remember realising I wasn't as concrete in my convictions as I thought I was. And yet, I had to keep going. To do anything else would be to render meaningless all that time, everything I'd worked towards, every word out of my mouth. I couldn't allow it."

"Yeah," said Terra. "You take yourself too seriously. _That's_ your undoing."

Xemnas made a 'hm' sound. He was still staring at the place where the Nobodies had stood.

"You should try that whole spontaneity thing," Terra went on. "It might loosen you up a little."

"I have tried it. As a result, I extended the olive branch to Ansem and you did not seem particularly happy about it."

"Well, of course I wasn't happy! After what he did to me _and_ to Aqua, sorry if I'm not lining up to be the fucking chairman of his fan club."

Xemnas turned his head to retort to that - but his eyes were drawn instead to something over Terra's shoulder. Terra glanced behind him and saw someone had appeared at the edge of the clearing.

It was Aqua. Her face was red with exertion, the front of her t-shirt sticking to her chest with sweat. She took one hard look at Xemnas and her keyblade appeared in her hand, her posture moulding into something tense and hostile.

“Ah, so she did catch up,” said Xemnas nonchalantly. "Impressive."

It certainly was. How did she even _find_ them? And did she run the whole way up here?

She took several steps forward out of the treeline. “Just who the hell do you think you are,” she said, the coldness in her voice palpable.

“Woah, woah, Aqua!” Terra leapt forward and waved his arms, and then remembered she wouldn’t hear or see him. “Ah, shit. Okay, look." He turned back to Xemnas. "Could you try to explain to her – HEY!”

In the blink of an eye, Xemnas had vanished. It was only by hearing the sudden clang of metal, a sharp exhale and the scuffle of feet; turning quickly to see Aqua hop back several metres to re-establish that safe distance between them, did Terra realise that Xemnas had just _lunged_ at her. He was now standing in her place, red blades glowing at his sides. The point where their tips touched the ground crumbled to dust, rose and disintegrated into nothing.

For a moment, Terra was frozen in shock.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing?” he shrieked, finally finding his voice. He hurried forward, his eyes scouring Aqua's body for any sign of injury. She had her keyblade raised defensively, her eyes narrowed. Her body positioned to repel any further attacks. Xemnas, in comparison, was regarding her almost casually. He didn't look round as Terra came up beside him. "She's not here to be your punching bag!"

"Do not discredit her," said Xemnas. "She is a keyblade master, not a child with a wooden sword."

"That's not - look, you're not drawing her into a battle. We're not at war any more. Plus, we're on a hiatus, in case you hadn't noticed! We haven't been training or anything-"

"Neither have I," said Xemnas. "Besides, she started it."

Again, Terra was gobsmacked. "What are you, four years old? She only said-"

"The battle commenced the instant she drew her keyblade."

Terra didn't care. "It doesn't matter. Lower your weapons, I don't give you permission to-"

It was as if he hadn't spoke. Xemnas blasted forward again, reappearing right behind Aqua and slashing up viciously. Her reflexes took her away in the nick of time, kicking loose rocks aside as she danced into the centre of the clearing, only to be pelted with another assault from long distance - a series of bullet like projectiles that she deflected with the keyblade.

Being forced to stand there and just watch... it was bringing back some painful memories. Terra groaned and clutched at his hair.

"Can you _not?"_ he shouted uselessly. "She isn't going to put up a proper fight when you're in _my_ body. She doesn't want to hurt me."

But it was worse than that. Aqua didn't seem to be fighting back at all - just blocking and then darting back out of range. She had an expression of intense concentration on her face, but she looked somewhat confused too. Every time she hopped back to safety, she'd re-adjust her grip on the handle of her weapon and scrutinise Xemnas carefully, like she was trying to work out some kind of puzzle.

"Do not hold back," said Xemnas, and Terra realised he was talking to Aqua, not him. "It is an honour to finally see your keyblade in action."

"Who are you?" she demanded. "And why does my keyblade-?"

But he cut her off with another frenzied whirl of slashes and this time, she twisted out of the way too late. Blood streaked up her pale forearm. She grimaced and wiped it off carelessly onto the leg of her sweatpants.

Terra had seen enough.

"Okay, stop," he ordered, leaving no room for manoeuvre. "Stop this right _now."_

In hindsight, he might've waited until they both retreated to a safe distance, might've remembered only one of them could actually hear what he was saying. Because in that split second Xemnas's attention was pulled away by the command, Aqua leapt in for her retaliatory attack, smacking him right up the back of the head with her keyblade.

From the way he crumpled into a heap on the spot - she'd just knocked him out cold.

Terra felt something seize hold of him and suddenly he was slammed back into the body.

What an opportune moment, too. He felt like his skull had just been cleaved open. The point of impact throbbed in agony, white stars exploding all over his vision. He curled up on himself and groaned, grinding the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. "Ow, ow, ow, _ow."_

"Oh my god." There was a crunch of stone underfoot, the warmth of a knee pressed to his thigh as Aqua crouched down beside him, her hand gingerly resting his shoulder. "Terra? Is that you? Are you alright?"

"Yeah," he mumbled. "Doing great."

"Oh my _god."_ She sounded horrified. "I'm so sorry! I thought he would block - and my keyblade was being weird so I... I swear, I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine." He snorted weakly. "My fault, actually. I distracted him, so..."

She prised his hands away from his face. "Try to open your eyes."

His vision fizzled back in slowly. Aqua was looming over him, gnawing on her lower lip. She was sweaty from the fight, strands of blue fallen loose from her scraggly ponytail and sticking to her pink neck and face. His breath caught in his throat.

"Sorry, does that hurt?" She was trying to slide a hand round to cup the back of his head. Her fingers prodded painfully. "Oh - fuck, Terra! You have a _huge_ bump!"

This was too insane. A half wheeze, half giggle burst loose. "Aqua..."

"Do you feel sick? Are you seeing double? Everything isn't spinning, is it?"

"Aqua... wait..."

"What?"

"... You just said 'fuck'."

She wasn't amused. "Right." She took hold of him under his armpits and tried to hoist him to his feet. "I'm taking you to the hospital."

They struggled for a bit, Terra lying limp, heavy and uncooperative. Part of it was definitely due to his injury, but another part might have been on purpose. "Wait a minute," he gasped, trying not to laugh again. "I don't want to go to hospital."

"Terra, you just collapsed."

"No, no, I didn't. Xemnas did."

"It's _your_ head! I don't care if he was in there, _you're_ the one who has to deal with this now, so come on. Up you get."

She made another effort to heave him upright, only to lose balance and nearly fall on top of him.

Considering her obvious guilt and concern, he really shouldn't be finding this as funny as he did. Even worse, her proximity and the feel of her hands on his body were starting to affect him in other ways. It was like adrenaline was spilling through his veins like a surge, making him giddy. Making him reckless. She sighed and pushed herself up onto her arms so she was hovering over him, face to face. Their eyes met, and Terra felt too bold to let the chance pass him by.

He tipped up his chin, bumping his cheek against hers in the search for her mouth. Her skin was damp and smooth, the sheen cool in the high mountain air. By contrast, her lips felt chapped and dehydrated, tasted like salt, and this wasn't how he'd ever imagined it would be... but it didn't matter. Though he felt her body tense, she didn't pull away. Instead, there was a tentative press; warm heat, her lips sliding against his.

She was kissing him back.

Something seemed to slot into place then; him and her, her and him. Aqua and Terra. This was how it was supposed to be. This was how it should have been, in all those years that were taken from them. With a small eager sound, he wrapped his arms around her, his mouth open and inexperienced and-

Aqua jolted back, breaking his hold on her. "Terra..."

-and he'd just got his yucky spit all over her chin. Oh, and they were lying on the cold dirty ground, all sweaty and blood-spattered. How romantic.

Feeling his face grow warm, he cleared his throat awkwardly. "Um, yeah?"

She stared at him for several long minutes. Terra didn't know what to do. Should he try to kiss her again? Should he try to hold her hand? Tell her he loved her? Ask if they should take this back to house, back to one of their rooms or something? The very thought had him tingling all over.

He knew what he wanted to do, at least. He went for another kiss but she pulled away, her eyes widening.

"Terra, that is you, isn't it?"

He laughed breathlessly, dropping his head back to the ground with a thump. That was when he was cruelly reminded that he was, in fact, injured.

" _Ow!_ Oh, fucking hell-"

"Watch yourself!" Aqua sat back and ran a hand over her face, torn between amusement and exasperation. "Come on. Let's get back to the house and put some ice on that thing."

It was as if he'd been beaten to within an inch of his life, the way Aqua fussed over him. Helping him to his feet, walking him out of the clearing with one of his arms propped over her shoulders, hers around his waist. He didn't complain. The smell of her hair in his nose and the taste of her mouth still on his were too sweet to entertain any notion he was being emasculated. In all the years he'd fantasised of reclaiming his dignity, his strength, of swooping in and being the friend, man and lover he never got to be, he didn't mind now if the roles were reversed. In fact, it almost seemed an inevitability.

_________________________________________

He spent the rest of the day lazing about on the sofa, a bag of rapidly melting frozen peas wrapped in a towel and propped awkwardly against the back of his head. Aqua insisted on staying with him to make sure his condition didn't worsen over the course of the evening, even when he wasn’t feeling all that bad to begin with. She poured through the symptoms of a concussion with him, even did that little test on his pupils with the flashlight to check his response to stimuli.

It was hard to know where to look. He was hyper conscious of her closeness - the way her body was positioned, where her hands were, how her mouth moved, her eyes.

They had kissed, hadn't they? He hadn't hallucinated it, had he? No, it _had_ happened. It had been far too real for the idealised daydreams of his youth; the silly visions of that perfect first kiss over a candlelit dinner, on the beach at sunset. Or, as he got older and the fantasies got hotter, cruder and more pornographic, of them stealing away in the midst of training, him peeling off her clothes and overwhelming her with pleasure against a locker or under the spray of the showers.

No, what he got was real. It was clumsy, it was over too quickly, and it was riddled with uncertainty.

But it was by no means any less stimulating.

He found himself repeatedly drawing his lower lip between his teeth, recalling the sensation of her mouth on his. Occasionally, he saw her eyes follow the movement, but she didn't say anything and they didn't make any attempt to recapture the lost moment.

“What was that all about, anyway?” she asked, lowering the flashlight. Terra blinked the spots out of his vision, blinked the encroaching thoughts of sex out of his head. “Letting him… do that, with your body.”

“Oh, well...” He sipped his tea as he considered his answer, scalding his tongue in the process. She’d made him about four cups in the last two hours, claiming he needed to keep his sugar levels up. “He said he needed to... I think he just wanted to blow off some steam or something. Trust me,” he added, when she frowned slightly. “I know how frustrating it is to be stuck in that world all the time, not being able to do literally anything.”

She said nothing, nibbling on the edge of a chocolate biscuit, her eyes slanting off to the side.

"What?"

"I don't know," she said. "Earlier, my keyblade... it was being weird. Like it wasn't responding to me properly."

"You are a little out of practice with it," he suggested. "And you didn't have it for years. Maybe it'll take a while for it to be completely in tune with you again."

"Hm." She seemed to think on it. "Would he have got hold of it somehow?"

"Huh?"

"That man - Xemnas, whatever his name is. Do you think he might've done something to my keyblade?"

He stared at her. "What makes you think that?"

Aqua shrugged, scoffing the rest of her biscuit. "Never mind, I'm just being paranoid. It's been a long time since I've had anything to myself." She rolled her eyes. "You know, more than just the clothes on my back."

There was a short pause. "It must have been horrible in that place," said Terra quietly.

"It was lonely," she said, running a hand idly over the arm of the sofa. "I... thought about you and Ven every day. That was the worst part. Not knowing where either of you where, or what might be happening to you. Not having any way to find out."

The frustration he felt was old, but it rushed back to him anew just thinking about it. "I wish I could've helped you. I _should_ have-"

"You're helping me now." She gave him a small smile. "That's the important thing."

"I don't see how. All I've done since we've come home is make everything about me and my stupid problems."

"Terra, you don't get it." Her hand rested on his. "You trusted me. You let me in. It sounds pathetic but... after everything, I just needed you to need me."

He looked down at where they touched. His gaze travelled up her forearm, freshly bandaged after the fight. Up over the sleeves of her shirt, up her pale neck, up to her eyes. When they were younger, the sappy boy in him used to think of her eyes as like the sky. So open and innocent and boundless. Now, they were older and harder, the edges all filled in. More guarded, but no less beautiful. "I do need you," he told her. "I've always... I'm sorry I never told you before."

_I don't just need you, Aqua. I want you. I want you more than I've wanted anything in my life-_

Ven chose that moment to come into the room. “Woah." He took a few steps back into the doorway. “Am I interrupting something?”

Terra jolted, his makeshift ice pack tumbling onto the floor. “No, no,” he said, as Aqua retrieved it and repositioned it over the bump, her face giving nothing away. “Uh, how’s you, Ven?”

“What happened to your head?”

“Aqua tried to knock me out,” said Terra. “She succeeded, actually.”

She slapped his leg. “Cut it out.”

He grinned. “It’s _true_.”

“Well, you weren’t all there at the time, were you?”

"Great," said Ven, scowling. "More inside jokes. Never gets old."

Sensing the incoming strain, Terra jumped quickly to divert it elsewhere. "What are you doing now?" he asked. "I was thinking we could all watch a movie?"

"All of us?" Ven raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"What sort of movie?" Aqua asked. "That last one you picked was terrible. We all fell asleep halfway through, remember?"

"Maybe we should try a horror this time or something."

"Oh god." She made a face. "That's more up Ven's alley."

"Alright then." Terra was pleased to see Ven's expression relax slightly; probably as he realised these weren't plans Terra had already made with Aqua before tacking him on at the last minute out of a sense of polite obligation. "Ven, looks like it's your choice. Again. Hey, I'm getting tired of you calling the shots around here."

"I've got some good ones," Ven said. "There's no way you'll fall asleep during them, Aqua, but you have to promise you won't hide behind a cushion like a pussy."

One of the aforementioned cushions went sailing towards his head and he ducked it with a grin.

They were just getting settled in, lights out and popcorn and drinks in hand, when a sudden thought occurred to Terra. He squeezed out of his position between Aqua and the arm of the sofa. "Hold on," he said. "I just have to check something first."

Aqua gave him a sharp look. He held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Well, I mean... you did knock him out earlier. I just want to make sure he's alright."

"Do I even want to know what happened?" Ven asked suspiciously.

Terra told him, though he decided to leave out the part where he and Aqua happened to lock lips. Ven's eyes went very wide.

"Wait, is that what that sound was earlier? Up in the mountains?" he asked. "I could hear that through my bedroom window. I thought it was a landslide or something."

That explained how Aqua knew where to find them. "Funny you should say that..."

Ven returned his gaze to the television. "Right. Well, hurry up, will you? I want to get stuck in to this."

"Yeah, hurry up, Terra." Aqua sighed, puffing a bit of blue hair out of her face. "We wouldn't want to delay the onslaught of CGI blood and guts."

Relieved, Terra gave her shoulder a squeeze before heading upstairs. He'd honed in on Xemnas's presence in his room when he got home, but he was too wrapped up in Aqua and too mindblown by the kiss to go check in with him.

Figuring he was probably just resting, Terra didn't think anything of pushing the door open without knocking. It was _his_ room, after all.

But Xemnas wasn't alone. Ansem was there too, the two of them sitting together on the bed, talking quietly. Terra hesitated, pulling the door back to a sliver to observe. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but there was something stopping him from barging in and yelling at Ansem to fuck off. Maybe it was their close proximity; the way their knees had overlapped, or the uncharacteristic softness of their voices.

As he watched, Xemnas lifted a hand up to brush against a lock of Ansem’s hair. The talk fizzled out and then they were even closer, eyes closed, their faces angled in a way that almost looked like...

Terra knew it was time to take his leave, closing the door as quietly as he could behind him and heading back downstairs. Whatever they were trying to approximate of real contact in there, it obviously wasn't meant for anyone but the two of them.


End file.
